Is it fall yet?

As soon as I get excited about nice, cool, fall weather, the temperature mysteriously climbs up for a day or too. It's happened three times so far this year, so I hope fall will finally be here for good. I just finished a knitting project, perfect for cooler weather, that I will put in a post this week. I will do several posts this week to celebrate the start of fall.

This week's Spoonflower Fabric of the Week contest called for autumn inspired fabrics using no more than three colors plus white. It's another big contest, although not as large as last week's Bird themed contest. My entry is titled "Fall Flowers" (I couldn't think of anything else at the moment), and is a large scale repeating pattern.

My design is layers of giant flowers piled on top of each other. The flowers were originally stylized mum silhouettes of one color each. They needed more to them, so I gave the flowers some layers of their own. It's a bit different and busier than my usual designs, but I'm happy with the outcome. I think it would be perfect for a full circle skirt, coat or jacket lining, and pillows among other things. Here is a closer look at the design:




The current contest ends Wednesday evening and you can vote here at Spoonflower. I am actually working on doing a collection for this design, and having the designs in various seasonal colorways. I will release the current collections as soon as I have them complete and proofed and release the others later.

As I mentioned before, this week will have several posts perfect for fall. I have a sewing project, a knitting project, and a garment reconstruction project. I will also have some fun Halloween posts later, too.

Past contest result, Bird Contest: "Chic Birdie Bows" finished 214 out of 341.

Please check out the Autumn fabric entries and vote for your favorites! Also, check out Spoonflower for fun fabrics for fall, Halloween, and Christmas. You can never craft too early!

Bird Fabric Contest

The current Fabric of the Week contest at Spoonflower is Birds with a limited color palette. The colors that could have been used were black, white, Spoonflower aqua, and a fourth color of the designer's choosing. I thought that there would be the normal amount of contest entries due to the limited color palette, but there are over 300 entries! Most of the contests (excluding projects/kits) have around 100-150 entries. I guess designers are crazy about birds!

I am starting to make my contest entries coordinate with some of my designs, rather than have a bunch of unrelated designs. I like the added challenge, and want to build up collections of fabrics that can actually coordinate with each other. Here is my Birds contest entry in repeat, "Chic Birdie Bows":

Bow detail.

The print features pretty bows connected by strands of pearls. The bows are made up of a stylized butterfly and two stylized birds. I chose a teal as my fourth color, so this print would coordinate with my Curves & Pearls Print shown below (in teal).




Both prints are also available in other colorways. "Chic Birdie Bows" is also on a white background and on a background of the Spoonflower aqua with white pearls instead. "Curves & Pearls" is also available on a background very close to the Spoonflower aqua with white swirls and spring green pearls.

You can vote for the Birds fabric contest here at Spoonflower. Fair warning though: there are 22 pages of entries to go through! There are lots of great designs (as usual) and it's interesting to see what fourth color designers chose. Many chose a teal color, but there are also unexpected color combinations that stand out. Take some time and vote for your favorites!

Bowling Fabric contest results: "Bowling Stripes Grey" placed 38th out of 110 fabrics. I ordered swatches of this fabric, along with my "Chic Birdie Bows" and other fabrics. I should receive them in a few days.

Next contest: Autumn themed fabrics. Next posts: some sewing/crafting projects, easy decor project, and Autumn fabric.