Another cold winter day, another floral pattern.

Oh, winter. You are the houseguest who stays too long, sits on the couch all day, and eats all the food. It does not bode well that I'm sick of this season already and it's only January. Nothin' coming around the corner but more of the same. My inbox and catalogs keep telling me to go ahead and buy some new pieces for my spring wardrobe, and I'm like "Wha-huh?" I've been wearing the same pair of skinny jeans for close to 3 months now because they're the only thing that fit under my big boots. Okay, shake it off, Katie! Shake it off. Moving along. 

I've been working on some floral patterns. While I don't consider myself a "flowery" kind of girl (lovely, but no thank you, Laura Ashley), I do really love flowers, and I even love floral patterns. Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner: beautiful! They make it look so easy! But I've got to say, florals are a challenge for me right now. I don't really have the hang of it yet, so I'm going to continue to work on building up my "floral skills." In the meantime, I've come up with these:

Both patterns will be available in my Spoonflower shop when I get around to ordering my samples. I also decided to try and work them into a tea towel layout (below). I don't know, I think I like them, for a first go and all that. Besides, it's nice to flood my brain with flowers this time of year.

Thinking Spring Quilting

Another week, another Spoonflower contest. I don't participate in all of them - I won't have that kind of time until Ben goes to Kindergarten! But I was interested in this week's contest: spring floral cheater quilt block. Say that five times fast. But it's January. And it was -23º here a few days ago. Who doesn't need some spring right about now? Put your mitten-wearing hands down. And "cheater" sounds like my kind of quilting. I like quilting and I have a real appreciation for the skill involved in being a good quilter. I personally really like modern, simple, clean, updated approaches to quilting. If I'm doing the quilting I really like easy. I don't have the patience or the precision to be a true quilting purist. Hand quilting an enormous quilt is way beyond the scope of my attention span. I've only made about 4 or 5 quilts. None of them have been bigger than crib size and all of them were machine quilted with very simple patterns, but I do love piecing together coordinating fabrics.

Simple patchwork quilts have always caught my eye, even before I gave a second thought to quilting myself. I think the patchwork is quilting in its most basic and beautifully simple form. A gathering of all those scraps of fabric that when left alone don't accomplish much, but when put together make this gorgeous kaleidoscope of color. When I started this design, not really knowing how to create a cheater quilt block, I knew it was going to be patchwork. 

This design features 3 inch squares of 8 different patterns. Using the spring floral theme I thought about spring rains (drops and puddles) and some of my favorite spring arrivals: daffodils, tulips, crabapple blossoms, and pussy willows. There was a restricted color palette for this contest, which was actually fantastic and very easy to work with. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as this was my first time really creating a "collection" of patterns all based on the same theme and colors. It's very simple in design, but I like the end result. It might even end up as another crib quilt. I think I'll probably cut larger squares of the patchwork and surround them with white borders because I do really like a good deal of white space in a quilt. I'm also uploading a couple of the individual patterns so I can get those on their own for the backing or bias edging.

All that to say, if you'd like to vote for my design, you can head over here. It's called April Showers. There are some really pretty designs in this contest - I have little hope of placing very high, but it was a fun contest all the same. In the meantime I can look at this and forget about the view currently out my window.

Spoonflower Tea Towel Top Ten!

Today was a pretty great day everybody. My 2014 tea towel calendar that I entered in the Spoonflower contest came in third! Whaa-at?! Woo-hoo! I'm pretty excited . . . and more than a little shocked . . . and a wee bit terrified. This is only the second Spoonflower contest I've entered and I could count my "fabric designs" on one hand, so I feel a little bit like I've been thrown in the deep end. "You mean people might actually buy it?" I haven't even received my test swatch yet! Very weird. But also very fun. There were so many wonderful designs, I can't even tell you. By people with far more experience than I. Frankly, I'm honored that people liked mine enough to vote for it. SO my little tea towel will be bundled together as a fat quarter with the rest of the top ten and available for purchase at a reduced price for one week only. Of course you can also purchase mine individually now and forever more, or until Spoonflower or the internet disappear. Many thanks to you if you voted for me & thanks as well for all the supportive encouragement as I try on this new hat. 



Photo courtesy of Spoonflower.

2014 Tea Towel Calendar

I've always loved those vintage tea towel calendars. I generally love kitchen towels, which is probably an odd thing to love, and I've been wanting to design my own calendar tea towel. Then I found out Spoonflower has an annual tea towel design contest so that gave me the motivation I needed to finish one before 2014 is actually here. I wish I'd had a little bit more time to work on it (speaking of procrastination) because Halloween and costume making got in the way of this project. In the end I'm still happy with how it turned out. I've entered it in Spoonflower's contest and you'll be able to vote starting on Thursday I think. There are some really beautiful designs out there. I'll also be ordering a sample swatch and then putting it in my Spoonflower shop so you can purchase your own. It's designed to print on a fat-quarter (18x27 inches) of their linen-cotton canvas fabric and you can view it here! I'm in the process of trying to get my act together to open an etsy shop as well and when that happens (fingers crossed) you'll be able to purchase a towel there as well. I just have to get through Halloween first . . . 

Another slice of fabric design

You remember how I designed my first fabric through Spoonflower and had it test printed? Well, Spoonflower has weekly contests based around different themes and I decided to take my new fabric designing "skills" (I don't think we can call them that yet, but for the purpose of this sentence just go with it) to enter a design in an upcoming contest called: Pies. Because really, pie? Pie and I go way back. We have a close and personal relationship that always ends with me practically licking the crumbs out of the pie plate. For my birthday, forget cake, bring me a pie and I'll be yours forever. Needless to say, it was a fun theme for me. But still a challenge. It was hard to not get too "all-American, red, white, and blue up in there. The pattern I came up with is below and you can find it on Spoonflower here. I think you can even vote for it next week if you have a Spoonflower account (I think you need one of those), and that way maybe more than just me and my mom will vote for it. That would make me feel all warm as an apple pie inside.

On a side note, the previous pattern I designed is available for purchase here if you feel so inclined. 

Coming soon to Spoonflower

I'm sure most of you have heard of Spoonflower, the online design your own fabric (and more) place. I've been lurking there for a number of years, I've ordered fabric from other designers, and the whole time I've really been wanting to design something myself. I'm finally getting there, thanks to a Skillshare class done in collaboration with Spoonflower. I actually worked on a different fabric design but decided it wasn't something I actually wanted to print. So I came up with the design below for my trial run. It might look totally hideous, it might not work, the colors might be wonky, or the blips in my design will be totally obvious, but whatever (!) the test swatch is on its way to my house. I can't wait to see it. Once I do I might put it out there for other people to purchase if they so desire. Then I hope to make myself some kitchen towels out of this stuff. 

Have you ever really needed to just get something done? That's how I felt about this. Waiting, waiting, maybe someday, once I know more, once I have the right tools, the right skills, etc. Sometimes I need to get past the second-guessing myself stage & just complete something to feel free to move forward, make some mistakes, and hopefully get better. I hope to see some more stuff like this around here in the future!

Find my fabric on Spoonflower here.

Valentine's Day pattern

A simple valentine stamp pattern I've been working on. I'm trying to figure out this whole pattern making thing in Photoshop. I got the book below for Christmas and can't wait to dive into it a little more. These are the kind of geeky things I get myself into.