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mmmm, everything looks nice when mocked up on linen....
No time for rest around here! This morning I ran up to the post office to collect a nice big fat parcel - limited edition letterpress cards by Lynn from Satsuma Press, the result of our collaboration! I'm really happy with how they turned out - such nice deep impressions :) There's three designs to choose from:
Treehouses, japanese tree, birch available in sets of 5.
Or you can buy a 3 pack with one of each. [UPDATE: all the "one of each" packs have sold out from my shop, but you can still get them from lynn's shop here :) ]
Lynn has sent me a bunch of (35 sets to be precise) to sell in my etsy shop, and she'll be selling the rest of them in her etsy shop. If you're based in the States or Canada I recommend buying from Lynn's shop to save on postage, and if you're based in Australia then you can buy from mine :)
Yay! Okay back to sorting out the rest of my life, and travel photos...
Ahh. I have that pleasant feeling you get after managing to successfully realize an idea that you've had in your head. Sometimes I feel like my 'ideas' are few and far between, and often I get stuck on an idea that I just can't get out onto paper. This is one of those ideas. I've made many false starts, I think because I was thinking too much about it. It seems to be so much easier to create stuff when you're in a somewhat altered state of consciousness. Drugs and drinking aren't really for me, but sleepiness seems to work as an alternative! This one started to come together directly after stumbling out of bed and onto the puter. I think that really helped.
I'd like to print this one soon, if I'm not the only one out there who likes it! But now it's a tossup as to which two designs I print next (I have to print them two at a time). This one, Birch Forest, or My Little Town. Hmm.
It's funny how sometimes the craft/design blog world can be simultaneously inspiring and petrifying.
Sometimes I look around and it feels like there's so many great ideas flying around out there and it's all too much. Not that long ago it seemed like there was a clear path and it was really obvious what would make a great design. Now it feels like a lot of those things have been "done", and there's a feeling (for me at least) of "where to next?".
Against my own advice I've also been putting more pressure on myself to come up with "the best design ever". I have all these ideas on the edge of my brain that I just can't seem to make come out right. I'm also trying to think of designs that can challenge the mediums and processes I have on hand. For example, I'd love to come up with a 2 colour screen print design where both colours can be printed off the same screen. I'd also love to be able to do an "inverse" print - where the design is made up of solid inked areas with gaps that form the design, rather than the other way around. This can be technically difficult though - because the printer prints the design in panels, you can get a double inked area where the panels overlap slightly.
Anyway that all said, below is a design that came to me this morning. It can work as as inverse print if the edges of the repeat go through the middle of a tree. I can just imagine a cushion made out of this :)
Only problem though is that it reminds me a lot of some other designs I've seen out there recently. Like Bird in the Hand's tree screen print or (scarily close to home) Auntie Cookie's home sweet home fabric. Am I being crazy? Tell me, honestly....
Recently I've been so focussed on creating screen-print friendly patterns that I've totally ignored designing for other media. I suppose thats because I haven't had much motivation to do so - I'm yet to find an inexpensive means of colour printing onto paper (creating stationery, gift wrap etc would be so much fun) which doesn't involve large production runs.
That was until I got an email from the lovely people over at Moo. They liked the patterned notecards that I created, and want to hold some of my designs in a library of images which people can use for their own minicards or notecards. And I get a portion of the revenue. Mutual appreciation = yay, indeed!
Anyway, I've always liked the style of patterns that Cavallini & Co. create, always drooling over their stuff in the window of Zetta Florence on Brunswick St. So I thought I'd give this style a go with the help of a clipart library. I found it too easy though - it felt like cheating:
(this one updated with better colours).I reckon they'd look cute as Moo notecards, though.
Those kids over at Moo are a clever bunch indeed. A week or so ago I got an email from them offering me a free sample of their newest product - a set of 16 note cards with your flickr pics on them. How could I resist. They're awesome:
Yay indeed. I might cut some of them up and turn them into tags. What makes Moo extra clever is the fact that if just a few people who see this post go and buy some cards themselves, then they've made their money back already. Ahh the power of the internets :)
Ahh, such wonderful comments from people about the Pattern Tester! I'm glad people had fun using it! I'd like to create a more advanced version which would also allow people to upload their own designs to play with. Also I'd love to make it so you can see the pattern & colourway in context. I just need to find/take some photographs of a blank cushion, lampshade, armchair, etc.
Sigh, I was really hoping to see my fabric arrive last week, if not the week before. Looks like the Easter break threw things out a fair bit. But my printer told me that it really should be ready by Monday. I really hope that's true, this time. And then I'll get it up into my shop asap!
Meanwhile, I've been preparing to release two new designs. I'm really looking forward to printing the Geese pattern from the other week - I have a good feeling about it. But I really want the other design I print alongside it to be something I feel equally happy with. And I reckon I've finally found it:
This pattern was inspired by some trees I saw in one of those little Japanese pattern/ornament books that you can get from the Brunswick Street Bookstore. Those little books are great - we've got quite a collection of them now. So am I on the right track thinking that this one will go well with the geese??
Thanks for reading :)
I must admit, I didn't stay completely away from the computer over Easter. I spent a little bit of time building a new toy: The Kirin & Co Pattern Tester!
It's a little Flash based interface that allows people to play around with the base fabric and ink colours for a range of my patterns. I figure it will come in handy for anybody who wants to place a custom fabric order (see my etsy shop for details).
The fabric colour options are based on the cotton drill available through my fabric supplier, so they're basically fixed unless I venture out into new fabrics. The ink colour can be anything one likes, however the way the ink appears on the base fabric isn't quite accurate here. The fabric is printed using a water based ink, so the base colour will always show through a bit. So light coloured inks on a dark background don't work so well.
Anyway, please have a fiddle and let me know what you think! And if you come up with any ace colour combinations you'd like to share, just send me the details from the caption :)
Since I got that last batch of fabric printed I've been putting pressure on myself to come up with some really good designs for the next patterns. So many ideas have come and gone thru my head, some have made it onto paper and some have made it to the final stages of development only for me to decide that they're just not working.
It's also quite a challenge to limit oneself to just a single colour for screen printing. I could go two colours but that'd make the print cost quite expensive, and not quite worth it at this early stage. Patterns that a lot of people like such as crafty bits wouldn't really work in only one colour, and I reckon i'd have to confidently sell 100 metres of it to justify the setup cost.
Meanwhile, I think this one is really working. I can just see it being made into a lampshade or panel in a bag. I wanted to do a design that was a bit looser and more random than my usual stuff, which typically has a very even coverage. Looks best enlarged:
Wow it's been quite awhile since my last blog post. Most of my spare energy has been directed towards organising my next print run of fabric, which will hopefully be finished by the end of next week or the week after - my printer is really busy at the moment, which is a shame.
I've also been trying to come up with some new pattern designs but haven't been happy with the result. Maybe I've subconciously moved the bar up too high due to recent successes. I want my next pair of printed fabric designs to be just perfect. The right mix of unique + fun + nature-ee + modern + retro-ee :)
A few people have asked me recently if it's okay for them to use my fabric to make things which they then on-sell. My answer is simple - definately! In my mind that's the ideal use for it. I'd love to see my fabric made into real things that can then be sold on to happy customers. I'd make things with it myself if I had a more reliable sewing machine. That said, the first thing I did when I received my fabric was make it into some lampshades. The yellow works particuarly well as a lampshade because the colour isn't too strong and provides just the right amount of contrast when the lamp is on:
Take care and thanks again for all the support and very lovely comments!
I haven't mentioned anything for a couple of weeks but the fabric printing is going ahead as we speak! It's due to be finished early next week and I am _so_ excited. And nervous. But mainly excited. Below are the four pattern and colourway options that will be available. The bottom design was a big favourite in the poll a few weeks ago, however the top one got hardly any votes at all (i reckon you have to see it printed to get the full effect). But it was the lovely Jenny from Amitie Textiles that helped pursuade me on that one, saying it was her favourite and offering to buy 10m of it for her shop. Yay!
(each square represents about 22cm squared)
Also i'd like to send a BIG thankyou to Krisen Doran who's been such a great help along the way, giving me heaps of advice on the process and being a great sounding board :)
