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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.
Yay! Nicole from Freshly Blended has opened up an etsy shop, selling some of her beautiful handmade journals - each one is completely unique and full of gorgeous little details and surprises. I love the one I have at home. Go snap one up now :)
Image courtesy of Nicole's etsy shoppe
It must be the week for discovering cool new things. Today I discovered the awesomeness of the Plotter - a type of printer traditionally used to print architectural plans. It differs from a normal printer in that it uses a mechanical arm with a pen attached to draw lines and colour in fills, much like a human does. But why is it so cool? Because it's CHEAP, that's why! I got two A0 size prints done (841mm × 1189mm) for $4.40 each! That's crazy cheap in my mind. I'm using the prints to get a sense of the scale of my patterns before they go onto fabric:
'geese' and 'japanese garden' - any suggestions for better names? Hehe.
On a side note, the other day I frightened a poor woman who was walking down the street when I shouted out and pointed at her - she was wearing one of my blue dot necklaces! I couldn't help it - I've never come across a stranger wearing my stuff before and it was a reflex reaction. She'd bought it from our local giftwares shop, so it's not as coincidental as someone who'd bought it off the net. But still.
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 :)
Hope everyone had a great Easter break! First day back after holidays is haaard. I've got so many little things to do and organise and I don't know where to start. It was so good to just take time away from the computer and the house and do some socialising - something I don't do enough of lately. It's been good to meet some lovely new people, too.
For anybody hoping to get their hands on some of the next batch of fabric, well it should be arriving in my shop any day now - it's just off being heat set as we speak - yay! I'll try to do the shop update at a more Australian-friendly time this time - before 10:00 at night ;)
I've been meaning to get back into my drawing a bit so that I don't get too pattern obsessed. I'd like to get better at drawing people at a larger scale, with more detail. Lately I've been a little obsessed with eyes, paying attention to how eyes look from different angles and particularly what "smiley eyes" look like. I like smiley eyes the best, like Jen Corace's girls. Anyway here's one of my first attempts at a larger scale drawing:
She looks a little odd in places, but oh well, it's a start :)
It's been awhile between posts and whilst I've been a busy bee there's nothing quite ready to show yet. So I'm just going to spread some linky love and profile two lovely ladies who are doing great things:
Nicole Lecht - Freshly Blended
Nicole's been a busy busy girl setting up her new website and shop for her handmade books - she's almost there and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the fruits of her labour. Here are some of the jotters she's been making. I have a couple at home and they're super handy for notes and sketches and (ashamedly) the occasional shopping list :)
What cute packaging!! I should tie up my fabric like that :)
Heather Moore - Skinny LaMinx
Heather is a whizz with the cutting knife - always making such gorgeous things such as the magnet below. I don't know how she does it without getting a sore wrist! She also makes gorgeous screen printed teatowels and whatnots - check out her etsy shop :)
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!
After a long, busy day of cutting and packaging yesterday I was pleased to discover an extra metre of each fabric still on the roll! So for anyone who missed out last time there's another 2 quantities of each fabric in my etsy shop :)
Golly gee. I put my fabric up for sale last night and woke up this morning to find it all gone! That's one of the fun things about living in Australia - things happen overnight and you find out bleary eyed in the morning.
To those who bought some - thankyou ,thankyou, thankyou. It's all rather overwheming at the moment but also such a relief that things have turned out so well - I could have been left here with bolts of fabric lying around the living room. Thankfully not so.
AND, to those who missed out, there's more to come!! I'm about to get another batch printed which should be done mid next week. I think a third colourway is in order - willing to take suggestions!
I'd better run. So much to do. Thank you all so much again for all the support, and for all the 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 :)
Firstly, I just want to thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of feedback on the pattern decision. And it was definately overwhelming! I spent so long struggling and stressing over which patterns to print and it kept me awake with racing thoughts for a couple of nights. But I've finally made my decision and am just waiting (somewhat frustratedly) on the fabric. I am SO itching to get moving on this!!
Meanwhile I got the coolest package in the mail today. This is Nicole upholding her part of the patterns-for-handmade-book bargain, and my god did she uphold it. I had a giggly old time unwrapping each part of the package she put together for me. Soooo gorgeous, every bit of it. And check out that wrapping paper!
In the forgeound is the beautiful handmade book she made me. It features different patterned papers front and back, fabric lining, a velcro buttoned pocket at the front containing a Certificate of Authenticity (with a familiar pattern on it, hehe), and pages and pages of different found papers waiting to be drawn all over.
Thanks again, Nicole :)
Would anybody be so kind as to tell me which of the patterns below they'd most like to see screen printed onto fabric?
I've chosen the ones that I feel would work best as a 1 colour print. I'm going to print two patterns for my first print run, and am off to Charles Parsons (thanks Kristen!) this arvy to buy some fabric. Ooh the ball is finally rolling!
Eeee, I woke up yesterday morning to find a bunch of etsy sales in my inbox and this great comment from Stereotte: "dude, did you know your prints are being featured over at Design*Sponge????" Haha! Wow I never thought that would happen!
I have never felt so much relief putting a website live than I did last night. I've been working on a monstrous Flash project for most of the past year and. its. finally. over. whoo!
For anyone who's interested in what I do for my real day job, you can check it out here. I'm not 100% proud of this project mind you. It might be visually impressive (albeit clunky) but I don't think it does what it's supposed to do as well as it could - which is provide 'young people' with information on some very serious topics.
I don't think such a heavy focus on 'cool' was appropriate here ... but I lost that debate with the art director ;) Who knows, I could be wrong. We'll wait and see how successful it is.
Anyway, the best thing about finishing that project is that it leaves me free to do some things that I've been talking about doing for ages. Today I finally went and visited 'Print Ink' - a screen printing studio who print fabric yardages (who also happen to be around the corner. How I love N.Melb). I was very impressed. They were exactly what I'm looking for and were such lovely people too! The prices were reasonable however require me to be fairly confident and commited about printing my designs and trying to sell them. Ahh well, whatever happens it should be a heap of fun!
Back to pattern design for a bit. I'm tending to favour designs that can work with a limited colour palette - a single colour even, so that when I finally get around to printing them I can do a 1 colour screen print.
A splash of colour variation:
Bit sleepy so the words aren't coming tonight. I've been working my way through The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain recently though. Has anyone else tried it? It's fantastic so far and although I can already more or less draw, there's heaps of insight into the drawing mindset and how to 'see' like an artist does.
Sleep time, g'night :)
