The Design Files

I am very flattered that an interview with me is up on The Design Files blog today! The Design Files is a Melbourne focussed design blog and profiles some really amazing local talent and places (today I learnt about Journal Canteen in the city - sounds just like my sort of lunch place!).

Thanks so much Lucy!!

Rainy Day in Autumn

Oh my gosh, 103 comments and suggestions on my last post! Thank you all SO much for your name suggestions, they were brilliant! Definitely kept me entertained over the weekend. I loved all the suggestions that related to trees and forest (I love trees, did you know?) but in the end I just couldn't get past the fact that it looks like rain to me.

So ..... I decided to go with 'Rainy Day in Autumn' :) 'Rainy Day' as the print name, and Autumn as the colourway, so later I can do Spring and Summer etc, as per Retro Age Vintage Fabric's suggestion.

Some free fabric will be heading over to Mia for the name, and Retro Age Vintage Fabric for the colourway/theme. Send me your details - thanks so much girls!



On that note, the shop is updated right now! I'm sorry that the price of Rainy Day is a little more expensive than usual - although I reduced costs on screens, 4 colours still costs more to print. But I think it's totally worth it :)

new fabric print - yay!!

I have been waiting for this for what feels like SO long. Finally my new 4 colour print has come back from the printers, and I am so happy with how it turned out. Here's a little preview!



One of my favourite things about this print is that all 4 colours are printed off the one screen. Tricky and complicated yet fun to set up! It helps keep the production cost down and makes multiple colour prints actually affordable.



There's only one problem though. I have NO idea what to call the print, and what to call the colourway! I've already done a print called "raindrops" so I can't use that. I was thinking something like 'rain', 'water', or just 'drops'. Or 'winter rain' which describes the colour at the same time... but maybe thats too depressing.

Anyway, I'm totally open to suggestions at this point. If you manage to suggest a name or colourway that I end up using for this print - I'll send you a free piece of the fabric :)

Hopefully something will be decided before Monday 28th, 9am Melbourne time, which is when I'm putting this up in the shop :)

little tags for mix packs

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments about my sketchbook! Definitely inspires me to turn some of those drawings into actual things. Looks like the 'book tree' is number one :)

I finally got around to making some more fabric mix packs this week. For awhile now I've been unhappy with the presentation of the packs - it seemed a bit stale, not cute enough. I like the idea of putting the fabrics in a cute little bundle, but you have to be careful doing that because if the thickness exceeds 2cm it becomes a 'parcel' rather than a 'letter' and therefore a gazillion times more expensive.

Anyway, I think I've found a good middle ground. And with the addition of some old fashioned swingtags (gocco printed at midnight last night), I think they look much better all round.





I'll be putting these up in the shop probably Monday 28th :)

Gocco tip - I've often had problems with the large solid areas of my prints being a bit patchy. I believe this is due to excess carbon in the original artwork which overheats and stick to the screen. However - there's some special stuff you can get called "Artwork Clean-up Paper". It looks suspiciously like baking paper and you iron it over your original and it lifts the excess carbon off. Worked for me!

sketchy!

I recently had a request from an interviewer for some pictures of my sketchbook. I took a bunch of photos and then thought I'd be a nice thing to post here, to show a bit of the process behind my designs. Not that any of these sketches relate to any of my current patterns, but they might one day!


Click to view proper big version :)

g'night :)

Crafty ladies in the newspaper

Yesterday's The Age M Magazine was chock full of crafty ladies! Firstly, one of Jhoanna's peg bunnies splashed over the front cover:




And then an article about 'the new cute', with a picture of Pip in it!




And then an article about 9 young designers ... with me in it :)


With the photo taken by none other than Bianca's boyfriend Marcel Lee. Yay for that.

Bamakko 'screened' exhibition this Saturday

I dropped off my warez at Bamakko yesterday and bumped into Bianca there doing the very same. I had trouble figuring out how to label my cushions and finally came up with these:



Gocco test prints + paper eyelets = handmade tags. Fun and easy.

Anyway, if you're not doing anything this Saturday evening between 9-6pm, do come and visit us at the exhibition. It's at Bamakko - 358 Victoria Street North Melbourne. Here's the flyer:


Click to see it proper-like

Yay!

New kid on the block - Pippijoe

Last week I got a surprise email from Caitlin, AKA Pippijoe, another Melbourne based designer who has just taken her first leap into the world of hand screened textiles. And I really like what she has done. I received these samples in the mail the other day and they look great:




All of her designs are printed on Hemp or Hemp/Cotton blends

There's even more great designs to choose from in her etsy shop, so I recommend you hop skip over there right now and get some, and support more locally produced textiles! It looks like our little Fabric Mafia += 1 :)

One Red Robin

I've always been a fan of Johanna's softie creations, especially her little peg animals.

So I had quite a giggle when I saw her latest Peg Bunny series, made from the fabrics of all 5 Aussie designers in our little 'Fabric Mafia':


Left to right: Shannon Lamden, Kristen Doran, Danielle Smeets, Lara Cameron, and Bianca Van Meeuwen.

It looks like they're all sold already except for Shannon's one far left, which you can snap up here.

Nice work Jhoanna :)

Bamakko exhibition

This weekend has been somewhat of a crafty marathon for me. I decided last minute to contribute some works to the Bamakko 'Screened' exhibition. Bamakko is a local shop run by another crafty man who makes bags and things, and he's been having themed exhibitions for the last few months. This coming one is focussed on all things screen printed, and myself, Bianca and Anna Laura are all submitting bits and pieces.

Along with my Sia's Village print, I'm going to submit these gocco printed Moleskine notebooks (thanks to Paola for planting the seed of that idea!):





It's not confirmed yet, but hopefully he'll also take some of these cushions (if they don't take up too much room). Thought I should actually submit something fabric based!





Okay, I need to go flop on the couch and do some serious relaxing...

antisocial blogger ;)

I have been pretty slack lately when it comes to blog-community socialising. Barely keeping up to speed with all my feeds, not commenting as often as usual. Some lovely people have given me blog awards which I still need to pass on - eep, sorry!

Bianca and Fi both tagged me a little while ago, so here goes:

1) I have trouble with left & right, and east & west. I've heard this is a sign of creativity though so I've learnt to love it ;)

2) I've discovered I have a tendency to cry for no particular reason on long plane flights. I'm sure there's many reasons why one would be crying on a plane (missing people, sad to go home etc) but none of those applied to me at the time.

3) I don't like purple. I can handle burgundy or plum, but not middle purple. And I know I'm not the only one - many people seem to have issues with purple it seems.

4) Come to think of it, I don't really like any pure middle colours. Middle green, middle blue, middle yellow. Yellow-green is okay, as is blue-green, and green-blue, and orangey yellow.

5) I've just (finally) found out how to make invisible zips actually invisible!! Thanks to this tute. So easy and so good - takes all the mess out of zipper sewing I reckon.

Okay that was all relatively easy and painless. I'll spare you all and not tag anyone else ;)

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share five non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag five random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website

Sproutdesign

As you might have already read on Kristen & Bianca's blogs, a new and exciting collaboration is going on between Sproutdesign and a handful of Australian textile designers. We've been asked to design a range of new and fresh textiles for kids, which will be launched at the Melbourne Life in Style trade show this August. How fun!!

Here is my chosen design:


My Little World in Plum for Sproutdesign


My Little World in Mint & Lime for Sproutdesign

And here are the chosen designs by the other designers. All very cool:


Nice work, girls :)

Shop update

Bulokku in Lime


Bulokku in Mint

The date for the shop update has been decided - yay! It'll be on Wednesday the 9th at 9:00am Melbourne time. As mentioned they're reprints of previous designs but all new colourways, and the best thing is they're printed on an eco friendly hemp and organic cotton blend. Mmm that makes me feel all good inside.

One little request: PLEASE if you're paying with paypal, don't close your browser window/tab until you are redirected back to my shop after paying. Otherwise the order isn't officially completed and causes all sorts of stock problems. Thanks!!


Birch Forest in Dusty Pink


Raindrops in Red Orange

New organic eco friendly fabrics!

How's that for title full of buzz words. I am so excited to announce that my latest range of fabrics is printed on eco friendly basecloth! The new fabric is a blend of 55% hemp and 45% Certified Organic cotton - whoo! Although it is made from hemp it's actually really soft and lovely - I really like it.



The other cool thing is that although these are reprints of existing designs, they're in new colourways I've never done before, and generally a lot brighter and fresher - hope you like them :)



I'm not 100% sure when I'll be able to put these up in my shop - it depends on when I can get my hands on a nice camera for the product shots. At this point I'm estimating Wednesday or Thursday this coming week :)

Home sweet home

We're back!!

I'll spare you the monologue of our travels, but suffice to say it was fun & inspiring, lots of things were seen and done, but I'm happy to be home. We saw some beatiful architecture, art and scenery, but at the end of it all it's reinforced for me that I really am a Melbourne girl, and nothing beats my home town. I'm sure I'm not really "supposed" to say that after a trip to Europe ;)

One funny story though - we completely missed our flights home. When we got to the airport, check-in had already closed. We were totally confused until later we realised that "summer time" had started that day, and our watches were wrong. How cruel is that?

However it all worked out alright in the end - we found ourselves in a situation where we could blame it all on the new dysfunctional Heathrow Terminal 5, and got free acommodation, breakfast and a new flight home - sweet!

Anyway I've jumped right back into the swing of things! Just collected a new batch of fabrics from the printers - all new colourways... will post more soon.



I also collected colour sample swatches for my new 4 colour print (see above) which go together perfectly! I'm so excited about this new one.

Oh also, the shop is restocked - I had to take everything down whilst I was away :)