Our Kitty is Inspiring

Axol is wondering why his fur is on my daughter.

OK, our kitty can be a little aggressive.  He comes from a long line of feral street kitties from Senegal.  Who knows, maybe he has a little African wildcat running through his blood.  We all live peacefully these days but I still keep my eye on him when company comes.  No one can pet him but our family.  Those souls who are sympathetic to animals and usually can overcome the hardest animal heart are saddened by the hostility our kitty shows.  He is a tough little nut.  We affectionately call him our demon kitty.  He is almost as good as an attack dog.  Woe to any trespassers here.

See the demon horns?

My daughter is especially enamored with him.  I think she admires his fierce nature since she is a more gentle spirit.  So, for Halloween this year, she requested to go as Demon Kitty.  That is, our cat Axol.  With horns.  So you can see the evilness.

Her request inspired me to create a repeating design fabric based on photographs I took of his fur.  I then printed the design onto Spoonflower's minky fabric so that it would have a bit of a furry feeling to it and be a bit warm for a chilly trick or treat night.  Another bonus, the fabric has a bit of sheen as well.  I only ordered one yard to make her outfit but I wish I had ordered 2 because I had to make her shirt from the left over material and would have preferred a different design with longer sleeves.  But, I made do with what I had.
If you are inspired by our kitty too, the fabric is available on Spoonflower in a natural, ginger fur color and a magenta, Cheshire Cat color.

He doesn't look so tough.

Amethyst River Flow

Not too long ago, I took a trip with my camera to Aburi Botanical Gardens, a somewhat neglected, but still beautiful botanical garden outside of Accra. The gardens were full of great texture, especially the mosses and rocks.  I used these photographs as a jumping point to make a series of fabric designs. Amethyst River Flow was the version of the design I chose to make into a wrap dress from poly crepe de chine.  The fabric is pretty light weight and has good drape. 
Oh, and FREE SHIPPING world wide until 12:00 EST 12/13.

 

See this fabric in my shop here

See this fabric in my shop here

See this fabric in my shop here

 

 

Seahorses

While visiting Ames, Iowa my family stopped by the Ames Main Street Farmer's Market (every Saturday 8-12) to pick up some veggies that are hard to get in Ghana.  It's definitely recommended if you find yourself in Ames. My daughter decided to wear her new Seahorse outfit designed by mom to the farmer's market. 
I created the seahorse design during Spoonflower's design a day block print daily prompt back in March.  This week Spoonflower posted a seahorse ditsy weekly challenge prompt so I used that print to create the ditsy print.  I also used the block print to create another coordinating seahorse print. The material was then printed on Organic Cotton Knit.
I designed the shirt to have a curved hem which is slightly longer in the back.  Instead of traditional sleeves I used a ruffle.  The shorts also have a curved hem in front in back.  I have further plans for a dress and wide pants.
Fabric info: Seahorse Symphony Ditsy on Peach for her shirt and the contrasting ruffle is made with Japanese Fan Scale Dots Green and Teal.  Her shorts are made with the coordinating fabric Seahorse Symphony on the Reef on Peach. 


Seahorse Symphony Ditsy on Peach

Japanese Fan Scale Dots Green and Teal

Seahorse Symphony on the Reef on Peach

 

 

In Honor of Earth Day & A Dress Not on My Daughter



Drawing of finished bag

 
 In honor of Earth Day this year, Spoonflower is hosting a contest for a shopping bag.  The idea is that the bag can be made with one yard of fabric and reduce the reliance on plastic shopping bags.  I have used prints from my Pond Life collection since it is a celebration of aquatic plants and animals.  The prints feature blue herons, turtles, amphibians, insects and other creatures found in and around freshwater ponds in the northeastern United States.  Please consider voting in the contest.  The Heron and Cattail prints will be available soon.
And finally is a picture shown below of someone other than my daughter wearing one of my fabric designs.  She purchased Red Rose Argyle from my Garden Path collection and had it made into this stunning retro dress.  Thanks for sharing!


Full yard view of the fabric on Kona cotton



 

Sharon in Red Rose Argyle

Trash Art Transformed: Monoprint Variations

A couple of months ago I shared some of my gelatin print designs.  I have manipulated those prints to a new collection of fabric and wallpaper designs I call Monoprint Variations.  The painterly effect of the prints has been emphasized and the colors enriched in some cases.  More variations available at my Spoonflower shop.

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Spring Floral Hex Cheater Quilt



Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Mock-up Flat, queen size



Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Square, fq






















Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Center, 1 yard

With the New Year I am back to participating in Spoonflower's Fabric Design Contests.  This week's entry is for a spring floral themed cheater quilt square.  A cheater quilt is a printed fabric that looks like a pieced quilt.  It allows a quilter to skip the piecing and quilt the layers.  Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Square is my submission to this week's contest.  It uses the limited color palette Spoonflower has selected for the entries and fits a fat quarter of fabric.  Please consider voting for my entry here.  If you do vote, deciding who to vote for will be particularly hard in this contest.  There are so many excellent entries.


Horizontal Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Chevrons

Vertical Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Chevrons

 I decided that along with designing the quilt square, I would also design other coordinating components to create a easy quilt.  The top right photo shows a mock up using my elements. On the bottom, is a sample mock-up as it might look on a bed. The Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Center is a one yard design.  The Chevron designs are basic repeating patterns.  All designs can be used on their own.  If you are interested in creating this quilt, please visit my Spoonflower shop.  The fabrics will be available for sale soon.


Floral Hex Cheater Quilt Mock-up

Kitchen Chickens

Around a year ago I started designing fabric seriously, although part time.  My first designs seemed to feature chickens frequently.  I didn't really think about it but when I was explaining to a friend my "chicken fabric" as I jokingly call it, I wondered out loud why so many of my early designs feature the poultry.  It occurs to me; I can blame it on my mom.
My mom loves the decorative aspect of chickens. I admit they can be beautiful animals. Many years our family purchased Hen on a Nest glassware for her on gift occasions.  Travelling for so long and living so far away from my family has made me a little nostalgic, especially since I have my own children now.  So, here's to you mom and here are your new kitchen curtains.
The curtains feature my design Garden_Path_with Rhode Island Red Hot Colors from the Garden Path collection.  Also shown, a swatch on silky faille of Rhode Island Red Roosters Ditsy on Green.

Fabric Fashions with Free Shirt Template

 I am very excited to share with you some clothing made from some of the fabric I have designed.  These capri pants are made with the African Lace in Midnight Blue print in a twill. 
 The second print, Rust Gold and Blue Grey Asian and Insect Collage is made with Spoonflower's polyester silky faille fabric. For this project I created a shirt of my own design.  The template below shows the outline of the shirt I created.  Please feel free to adapt the pattern for your own shirt.  This shirt is a simple pattern with the same shape front and back except along the collar.  It has a half inch french seam except on the collar which has a quarter inch seam.

Starry Night

This week's contest entry is Seven Sisters in Purple Space for the Constellations contest on Spoonflower. The Seven Sisters is another name for the constellation also known as the Pleiades or M45.  I have drawn a stylized set of the stars in the constellation and layered them in different directions.  Please consider voting for me.

Nostalgia: Brookside Gardens Fabric Design

I spent around ten years living in the Washington DC Metro area.  During that time one of my favorite places to go was Brookside Gardens.  Really, I love the entire extended Wheaton Regional Park.  I have taken many pictures there, including this one of the Japanese Tea House shown below.  When I read about the Spoonflower competition Kuler Spaces I knew that this would probably be the space I chose to explore.  I have been meaning to create some art with this garden as inspiration and this was an opportunity to do something really novel.  The background of the fabric is taken from the woven reeds/sticks that make of the ceiling of the teahouse.  I used the photo below as well as photos of flowers from the garden, turtles from the pond, swallows that I saw flitting around the teahouse and of course the Japanese Maple.
Adobe's Kuler program picks a selection of colors based on a photograph. The Spoonflower contest requires the designer to use only the color palette from their photo in the fabric design. The Kuler program is a fun toy to play with and there is an iPad and a browser based version of the software.   Because there was no other theme this week's contest is one of the most diverse group of entries I have seen.   Please consider voting.

Brookside Gardens

 



The color pallete selected by Kuler from my photograph



Under African Skies

As you have read in my blog in the past, I am living in Senegal.  The fabric, culture and architecture of African is very inspirational for many of my designs (available as fabric, wallpaper, giftwrap and decals in my Spoonflower shop.)
The African Visage print was inspired by African motifs in wax prints as well as the theme for the Dakar Women's Group art show this year: Visage.

African Faux Lace uses the same background motifs and peanut plant leaves as in African Visage along with netting to create a lace overlay effect over the background.  Included in the second row of African Faux Lace swatches is an example of my lozenge style design, Senegal 1.2 directly inspired by wax prints.

My newest prints coming out Moroccan Tiles and Radiant Spokes have a north African inspiration. This time mainly architectural details.  First picture is of detail of the design and second picture is the view of a quarter yard, like the designs shown above.  These prints will be available soon from my Spoonflower shop.

Midsummer Design

This weeks Spoonflower Contest is a color restricted design based on Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream.  My design shows Titania besotted with Bottom while fairies hover over a field of Love in Idleness (a kind of wild pansy or violet.)  I thought this challenge particularly hard to design for but I enjoyed listening to the play audiobook on Youtube while designing.  Voting in the contests ends Thursday.

I will be taking a break from entering the contests for a few weeks.   

Farmer's Market Bounty

Farmer's Market Bounty close-up

This week's Spoonflower fabric design contest theme is Farmer's Market.  My design is based on the garden that the farmer's market fruit, vegetables and flowers are harvested from.  The color pallet is similar to my Garden Path with Chickens design.  If you get a moment, please vote in the weekly contest. 

Floral Ikat

My newest test swatches arrived recently and I am very pleased with the samples.  Below are my Floral Ikat designs.  These swatches are printed on basic combed cotton and are 8 x 8 inches.  The pattern is available in silk and cotton as well as wallpaper.

First Fabric Sales and the Garden Path is Growing

I am so excited to share my first two sales from my Garden Path Collection on Spoonflower.  Both sales were of the Rose Leaves Ditsy pattern in the two different colorways shown above. Hopefully, the purchasers will share pictures of their projects with me so I can share them with you.

I just got in the fabric swatches from my entry to the Baby Animals contest on Spoonflower as well.  These prints are now for sale and are part of Garden Path Collection.  And this spring, that's how the garden grows.