Feeling a bit spacey

I've been absent from Spoonflower contests for a while. MATS and other things have taken over my life since February or so, but I couldn't pass up this most recent contest: Cosmic Voyage.

I have a special fondness for space and astronomy. It ranks right up there with my interest in tornadoes and apes that communicate via sign language. Growing up in a rural area with very dark skies, we could regularly see the Milky Way, and in college I was fascinated by SETI and went on a reading binge where I read a bunch of books on the subject. Aside from my own interest, my husband always wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, so he really, REALLY likes astronomy.

The first Christmas my husband and I were dating, I bought him a big, fancy telescope kind of like this one. It was so awesome: it was motorized, had an automatic star finder device, and could track celestial objects across the sky. It went with us on our trip to NY to see my parents that December, and one night as my husband-to-be and my dad looked at the stars together from out on the driveway, he asked my dad's permission to marry me.

Now, 11 years later, our oldest child is maybe just old enough to appreciate (that is, not break) the telescope. Maybe we'll get it up out of the basement this summer!

Here's what I came up with for the Spoonflower contest -- some astronauts, watercolor planets, and goofy aliens. It's entitled "Space… A Friendly Place!" because thinking that the aliens might not be glad to see us (as in, they might want to annihilate us) is something I'd rather not contemplate. Thanks to my husband's Ancient Aliens just-before-bed obsession, I often go to sleep creeped out by alien abduction and that sort of thing. (Actually I do like to get a glimpse of that guy's hair.) So my aliens are a little bit goofy and very, very nice.

Stretching...

As I wrote in my last post, I decided kind of at the last minute to sign up for Make Art That Sells, Part A. It's now one week into the class and I've finished our first assignment, creating bolt fabric with a vintage Pyrex-style casserole and berry theme.

Going into the class, I didn't expect week one to be particularly earth-shattering for me. I've been designing fabric for a couple years, took two fantastic classes with Michelle Fifis (Sellable Sketch and The Ultimate Guide to Repeats) and have my work licensed (although the majority of it is in the scrapbooking market, and just one print is licensed in the fabric market...), so I thought I had my style and method figured out, although maybe it just needing some fine tuning.

As it turns out, I was totally wrong. I realized I'm bored, bored, bored with my work and need to do something new. It was kind of tough going this week!

I started out the week sketching in my usual style (realistic) and with my usual mediums (Pigma Micron pens, watercolor, colored pencil). Then I drew directly into Illustrator the way I usually do, stylizing the forms so they weren't too stodgy (because in my mind, realistic = stodgy and stylized = retro cool.)

I put together a retro style print as I usually do, and hated it. It was fine, but I had no motivation. Part of the point of this class is to grow, which means trying something new and taking chances.

So I scanned in a bunch of my sketches, tweaked them a little, traced and colorized them in Illustrator. The final print was more exciting than my usual stylized vector stuff, but not quite there yet. It wasn't really vintage kitchen; it was more sketchbooky floral. It wasn't Pyrex/casserole dish enough; I enjoyed drawing berries and leaves so much more than dishes, so it had mostly botanical motifs.

It was hugely frustrating and I felt like I put in hours and hours and got absolutely nowhere -- pages and pages of sketches and no fabulous, professional print collection to show for it.

But the final print was more "me", a little quirky, and had much more of the hand of the artist in it, which I love seeing in others' work. It's a stepping stone in the direction I've wanted to go for a long time, but never knew how to get there or even begin. So I call it a success. Kind of.

Next I think I'll try sketching larger, with less attention to the details, and with a different tool (watercolor paper / brushes) and see where that leads. I'm excited to get started!

Big news in my little corner of the world!

I'm so happy to announce my design, Hero-saurus, was chosen by Timeless Treasures as the winner of their Be My Hero contest on Spoonflower!!! Which is awesome in and of itself... but most awesome of all is they're going to license it! It's dorky, but it's pretty much a dream come true.


For sure I thought mine would NOT win... there were some really amazingly good designs, like this one by CJL Designs/Julie Lynch, which was probably my favorite. It's such a great illustration, and the layout, interesting repeat and unique color palette make it even better.

I just KNEW mine wouldn't win.

Last Thursday while the younger two were having breakfast, I saw the email from Spoonflower. I expected it to read, "Congrats, you're in the top 10, but unfortunately we didn't choose you design as the winner..." but it didn't. I just couldn't make sense of it. It took about four reads for it to register.

Then I think I yelled. My two year old jumped. (Luckily he was buckled into his high chair so he didn't fall out.) My four year old didn't understand what was wrong with Mommy.

I decided to be an artist when I was four years old, I think. At first, things looked fairly promising: At age eight, I won 2nd place in a nutrition placemat contest where the prize was breakfast with a bunch of senior citizens (not super fun for a 8 year old). In high school my artwork won a bunch of prizes, some local and a few Scholastic Awards.

I even got a BFA in visual art, in painting and drawing, specifically.

In the years after college, I meandered around the worlds of children's book illustration, fine art, crafts, graphic design, and illustration, never really finding my niche. I entered many art and design contests, but only won one: an American Graphic Design Award. What the heck was I going to be when I grew up??

Then I found Spoonflower. A couple months into my adventure in fabric design, I was shocked to win the Pointillism Fabric of the Week contest. Then came Alphabet, Hawaiian Quilt (a tie with this lovely one by Jessica Greenwalt), Bowling, Sewing, and now, Be My Hero. Craziness.

I feel awed having won six FOTW contests... and quite honestly, I feel very lucky to have found fabric design in the first place. It's a great mashup of a lot of the stuff I love to do: draw, paint, make repeats, create silly little characters, use my odd sense of humor, tell a story, use bright colors, ask my children's opinions on my work, create something really cool that's useful at the same time. I think it might be a perfect fit.

Owlicious

Last Tuesday, as usual, I was waiting for #3 to wake up from his nap, while cooking dinner and working on some things on the computer. I was putting the finishing touches on an owl illustration, when all the sudden I was compelled to stop what I was doing and design a calendar for Spoonflower's Tea Towel calendar contest.


It was so weird. I had absolutely no intention of entering. But it was almost like the owl made me do it.

Good thing I did, I guess, because the calendar made it into the top 10, and my email notifications from Spoonflower sales (mostly of the owl calendar) have been going absolutely nuts! It's also a "hot seller" on Spoonflower's site... yay, me!

After a trying week of still not feeling well (three weeks of probably-bronchitis?), sick kids, angry clients, and exhaustion, it was really lovely to have something nice happen.

Now I'm thinking of designing a collection that includes the owl... but are owls a waning trend, like those "Keep Cool and Whatever" posters?

Blog neglect and hard drives in plastic baggies

I was driving home this morning after dropping off the eldest at school, thinking how the past six years somehow simultaneously feels like it's gone by in about an hour but also like it's taken an eternity.

It was an extraordinarily hot summer, and now that it's suddenly cool enough to kill off my sad little tomato plant with the one solitary tomato clinging to its branches, it feels like summer was only a week long. Yet while we were in the midst of it, it lasted about three hundred years.

Between breaking up kid fights, taking the knives away from the toddler or getting him down off the counter / table / chair / stairs / the geriatric cats, I've been neglecting a lot this year. Client work... getting really super serious about my fabric designs... vacuuming... keeping up with this blog... backing up my files.

A few weeks ago, my computer started making weird noises. One morning it just wouldn't turn on. Turns out the hard drive was dead. So dead even my in-house IT dept (my husband) couldn't get any data off it. Which means two years of stuff was gone, too, since I hadn't done a full backup since just before the youngest was born. Really big, giant oops.

Since then, I've been sitting around thinking of random stuff I want to use / read / look up / send to people, and then I remember it was all on the dead drive. Ugh. So much stuff.

The good news:

• I just did my first Spoonflower design since HDD day and I have about a million more super exciting ideas in my head for new fabrics
• I have an old computer with a new fancy giant hard drive
• I'm almost over this cold
• I get to draw dinosaurs
• It's not 105 degrees outside
• Nor is it snowing
• I've discovered I'm an optimist
• It's the season for Halloween / Dia de los Muertos and all the awesomely cool and creepy decorations that go with it
• I get to design a pincushion and write up a tutorial for Riley Blake <-- (possibly the most exciting recent development of all)

So not all is lost (no pun intended.)

Playing together nicely

Even if my daughters can't do it, at least my fabric designs can!

Here's my latest Spoonflower fabric of the week contest entry, June Birthday, one of my favorite floral designs with a matching dot, geometric, and stripe.

Memories of Home

Some new stuff I'm working on: a series of house ornaments. They're especially meaningful to me because I started with the house I grew up in. I haven't been inside it in almost 20 years... sure wish I could walk through and see what changed, what stayed the same all this time.

I'm planning on illustrating one of every style that appeals to me (notice I'm not promising any particular number of houses, ha!), but each one will be the house someone I know has lived in. Kind of like a house portrait, but made generic enough to appeal to anyone.

So far I have the '50s ranch, early 1900's gablefront, 1930's bungalow and 1970's split level. Next up, 1920's Cape Cod, 1990's colonial, and who knows what else I'll come up with. Maybe I'll even throw in a chicken coop or outhouse or two.

Arachnids and Parsnips?

Another wacky fabric design for Spoonflower's root vegetables contest. It's called Root Cellar and combines vegetables, assorted containers and spooky labels.

At first I was illustrating it much more realistically, with perspective, shading and 3D effects (see below). I was just about finished when I decided I hated it, scrapped it and started over.

The final one's much brighter and more fun, but the style of the first one made more sense because of the Halloween-y subject matter.

What do you think: Should I have gone with my initial idea and submitted the first (bottom) version?

Tiered skirt tutorial

I've been thinking, if I'm going to be designing fabric, I should probably start sewing more. And taking pictures of my projects and posting them. And hopefully putting together tutorials about what I make. So here goes.

It's my first tutorial, so please let me know if something makes no sense or if you need more explanation.

My oldest loves skirts and especially ones that flutter out when she spins. She also loves robots, Spider Man, He-Man, bugs and playing in muddy puddles. So just for her, I designed this skirt.

It's based on a very simple tiered style skirt, where four rectangles of increasing width are gathered and sewn together. The waist is a channel folded over and sewn shut with elastic threaded through it. Easy, even for me!

You can buy my preprinted robot skirt kit here (the photos show how the printed yard looks), or just follow the instructions and use any fabric you have on hand. My preprinted fabric, and the below measurements and instructions make a mid-calf length skirt that fits about a 5T/6T.

- You'll need a length of 1" wide elastic (about 1" longer than the diameter of the waist measurement of the wearer), some fabric (one yard should do it; either one color or a bunch of coordinating patterns and colors), and the usual stuff: thread, scissors, sewing machine, iron.

Here's how to make it:

1. Measure & cut: You'll need 4 rectangles to make the four tiers. Measurements are 30" x 7.25" (A, in photo above), 44.25" x 4.75" (B, above), 56" x 4.75" (C, above, in 2 pieces), 100" x 4.75" (D, above, also in 2 pieces).

In my limited sewing experience, I've found that a rotary cutter, straightedge and cutting mat are invaluable. Without them, I'd never be able to cut a straight line.

In the photo above, you'll see the pieces cut from my preprinted pattern. Since the two largest rectangles are wider than the yard of fabric, I had to make them in sections and piece them together. You might have to do that, too, depending on the width of your fabric.

Because of the crazy busy pattern on my fabric, once the skirt was sewn together the seams were pretty much invisible. My fabric also has a robot doll and a little bag to put her in printed on the yard, so you'll see pieces for those on the right side of the photo.

2. Gather tiers: Adjust sewing machine to longest stitch length and sew a straight stitch along top edge of tiers B, C and D. Pull bobbin thread to gather fabric into a ruffle (see photo, above) until the width of each tier matches the bottom of the tier it will be sewn to.

For example, you'll gather the top of tier B until its gathered width equals 30", which is the width of tier A. Tier C's gathered width should equal 44.25". Tier D's gathered width should equal 56".

3. Sew tiers together: Pin right sides of the four tiers together (see photo above), A at the top, then B, then C, with D at the bottom, adjusting the gather if necessary so the widths match up. Sew using a straight stitch. Zigzag stitch along the edges you just sewed to prevent fraying.

I always put the gathered piece on top and the flat piece on the bottom when sewing; that way I can make sure the presser foot isn't pulling out the gather as I sew. I get so frustrated when I mess up and have to rip out all the seams and start over, which happens a lot, so I'm all for tips and tricks to prevent that!

Here's what it looks like with all the tiers sewn together. This is my favorite part... it actually looks like a skirt here!

4. Sew side of skirt: Pin right sides of skirt together and sew, then zigzag the edges to prevent fraying.

(Note: It seems to be easier, for me at least, to sew the tiers together when they're flat. Some tutorials have you sew each tier together on the short side, then gather, then sew all the tiers to each other. I think having them flat makes it easier to measure and pin, so that's what I'm recommending here.)

5. Create waistband: Fold over 1/4" of top edge (on tier A), press. Fold sewn edge down again, creating a 1-1/8˝ channel, press and sew again. Feed the elastic through the channel. Put a safety pin on one end of elastic to help it slide through more easily. Overlap ends of elastic, hand sew or machine sew together. Blind stitch the channel closed.

6. Hem: Fold over 1/4˝ of bottom edge (on tier D), press. Fold entire seam over again, press, and sew in place.

7. Topstitch: Sew a straight stitch just above the seam where each of the tiers are sewn together (it's the white dashed line in the photo above. Forgot to take a picture of it!). This is totally optional, but I think it gives the skirt a really nice finishing touch and makes it look more professional.

That’s it… now have a little one try it on and twirl away!

Four

Someone besides me likes old neon signs! It really makes me happy knowing I can design something people like enough to want to buy.

I have no idea what in the world you'd use this fabric for, besides the obvious (bowling shirts? bowling bags?), but it does look pretty cool. I would love to see whatever anyone comes up with using the fabric.

So counting this week, I've won four Spoonflower fabric of the week contests. According to the Spoonflower people, I'm in danger of becoming a SF celebrity! That's pretty darn awesome. :)

Color challenged

Every time I choose the perfect color to paint a room, it's wrong. I have a very hard time picking palettes. I can't decide on the right green. You'd think I'd have an easier time of it, having a BFA in visual art plus a certificate in botanical illustration.

Most of my classes pretty rigorously emphasized the basics: cool vs. warm colors; the fact that value is actually more important than color; the properties of paint and other mediums; how colors change depending on where they're viewed, what they're next to, and the light they're viewed in; how reflected light affects a color.

Still, I feel like I'm lost when it comes to choosing colors. For any purpose. Like when I have to choose a fourth color to complete my limited palette Spoonflower fabric of the week contest design: black, white, sage-y green/blue, and one color of my choice.

I tried light salmon pink, orange, rust, dull brown, warm gray, periwinkle, yellow, gold... and settled on a darker version of the aqua. Maybe I'll upload the others and see what everyone else thinks.