Back to Blogging and Weekly Obsession

I wasn't planning on taking this long of  break from blogging, but am glad to hopefully post regularly again. I also didn't really design much over the past few years unfortunately. I've started designing again, and hope to have new designs available for purchase soon. It's amazing how being in a less stressful environment and having a great support system can make you feel more like yourself. While I was away from designing, I did get into doing cosplay and going to cons! I even won a cosplay contest (as Agnes Oblige from Bravely Default in the freelancer outfit). I really should be working on my current cosplay, but haven't been inspired lately due to several things that have gotten me down. I'm planning to seriously work on it in a few weeks, so that it could possibly be ready for cons later this summer. I might be a bit too optimistic about that, but I think I need more optimism in my life.

A recent design, Iridescent Geometric. Click the image to go to its Spoonflower page.

So to encourage me to blog more regularly, I've decided to do a number of weekly posts. On Wednesdays I plan to post about my weekly obsession of the past week. It could be a television show, movie, book, blog, food item, restaurant, place, game, animal, or really anything. This week's obsession is a tie between Moana and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. I have been listening to the Moana soundtrack a lot over the past month, maybe even longer. I finally watched it last weekend and loved it. The animation was beautiful, especially the underwater scenes. The colors! *insert heart-eyed emoji here* One reason why I liked the film so much is because my grandma recently passed away. She was quite a character, much like Moana's grandmother, and also liked to dance. My grandpa, her husband, passed away several months ago. Both of their deaths have greatly affected me as I was close to them. I know they will always be with me, but seeing the scenes with Moana and her grandmother made me feel better. I'm probably going to listen to the soundtrack after writing this post. (Obsessed, you bet!)

My other obsession for this week is Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a series set in Australia during the 1920s featuring the thoroughly modern Miss Fisher, a lady detective and available currently on Netflix. I've just completed the first season, and really like it. The characters, costumes, sets, and music are all wonderful. Or the bee's knees, to use an era appropriate phrase. While it doesn't have the logic of Poirot and Sherlock, it is delightful and doesn't feel too dark or heavy. I had seen it on Netflix as either a suggestion or it being popular, but finally gave the show a go thanks to some recommendations from friends.

What have been your recent obsessions? Share in the comments!

New Year, New Designs!

Happy New Year! I won't be making any resolutions, since I already fail at seemingly easy tasks (ahem, Twitter, and as of recently, blogging). I do however want to try to blog every week. I think I can make that happen. I've been wanting to do that for a while, but got sidetracked. First with moving, and recently with the holidays and being sick. Instead of blogging, I've been playing games. And I haven't done much of that lately, either. New goal: one blog post equals video game time. No playing until it's published. That way I can update my blog and have fun. Win win.

I did promise some sewing posts, which will still happen. I actually finished a new project yesterday, so will include it in the post, or give it its own. I still need to finish one sewing project up, and photograph them all

I have been designing, though not as much lately. Here is a recent fabric design, perfect for an after holidays sweet tooth:

Sugar Rush Dotted, shown at swatch 8"x8" view. Click image to see repeat in yardage.

I entered Sugar Rush Dotted into the Sweets Contest on Spoonflower. It placed 26th out of 207 entries. This design makes me happy looking at it. I have plans to do some coordinating prints using the candy pieces. I have also done a Halloween version, and will do a Christmas version for next year. Here is the Halloween version:

Halloween Sugar Rush, shown at fat quarter 21"x18" view. Click image to see fabric page.

The current Spoonflower Fabric of the Week Contest called for designs with a snowflake theme. I went a bit stylized and futuristic with my design:

Space Age Snowflakes, shown at fat quarter 21"x18" view. Click image to see fabric page.

I was making homemade Christmas cards when I came up with the idea of creating larger snowflakes out of smaller ones. But then I found my inspiration for this design when looking at images of 1960s space age fashions. One dress had a lace/mesh overlay that looked like stars. I liked the idea, and decided to create simple and stylized snowflakes for the design, changing the colors for the larger snowflake shapes. The design has a sort of shimmer to it, with the colors used.

Voting for the Snowflakes contest is longer than normal, and ends tomorrow, Wednesday. You can vote for your favorite snowflake inspired fabric designs here until then.

I'm going to stay warm, finish up on a sewing project, photograph projects, and play some video games today. I will try to have another post up before Sunday, when I will have a post for a new contest entry.

*Past Contest Entry*
-Nasher/Matisse: Squiggle Stripe 132/303

Squiggle Stripe Design

I meant to write more blog posts for recent designs and projects, but was so busy with life (moving and work) that I forgot. Oops. This post will be on my current Spoonflower entry, and the next post will be a catch up of new designs. I plan on finally photographing a few sewing projects this week and will have posts for at least one later this week.

The current Spoonflower Fabric of the Week contest is something right up my alley. Spoonflower partnered with The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University to hold a limited palette contest for fabric designs that would fit in a Matisse painting. The contest theme is for an upcoming exhibit at The Nasher Museum, and the Top Ten designs will be featured at an event there.

Matisse happens to be one of my favorite artists, so this contest was a must for me. I like both his earlier paintings with the bold use of color and design and his later paper cutouts that still have the bold designs. I drew inspiration from both his early and later works for my entry, Squiggle Stripe:

Squiggle Stripe, fat quarter 21"x18" view shown. Click image to see repeat in yardage.

I've been on a bit of a diagonal kick lately, which is good considering there are diagonal elements in several Matisse works. Creating shapes and lines that weren't perfect was a bit hard for me, but was also fun. Getting the repeat right was much easier after messing with several other diagonal repeats, even if this one wasn't a typical diagonal.

While the contest brief led to the impression of the designs working well for home decor purposes, I think my design would also be great for a summer outfit. I am imagining a full skirt or even a dress made from this fabric. A fashion scarf would also look great with this fabric.

You can vote for your favorite entries for the Matisse/Nasher contest at Spoonflower here. The contest ends Wednesday. There are lots of fantastic entries in a wide variety of styles, so be sure to check out the contest.

*Up next: a catch up post with new designs and recent contest entries.*

Extinct Animal Crackers

For the recent Extinct Animals contest at Spoonflower, I decided to create two collections. It was good that I did both ideas, as I changed my entry at the last minute. My original contest entry was a print inspired by the Bogota Sunangel hummingbird. I swapped out my pretty (but sad) hummingbird print for something a bit more fun.

Extinct Animal Crackers, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

I somehow got the idea to do a print of various extinct animals in animal cracker and cookie form. (It may have been due to my love for animal crackers, especially the chocolate ones). I did some research to figure out which animals I wanted for the print. Represented in cookie form are Tyrannosaurus Rex, Quagga (half zebra, half horse), Steller's Sea Cow, Irish Elk (one of the largest deer that ever lived), Dodo, Great Auk, Eurphinodelphis (dolphin with a swordfish like jaw), Archaeopteryx (feathered dinosaur), Saber-Tooted Cat, Plesiosaur (aquatic reptile), Hallucigenia (strange looking arthropod), and Woolly Mammoth.

I also did this same print in a smaller scale, better suited for clothing and smaller craft items.

Extinct Animal Crackers Ditsy, swatch 8" x 8" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

I wanted to do a sort of scene with the animal crackers, as if someone was playing with them and imagining them in their settings. The end result isn't exactly how I pictured it, but I think it's still fun.

Extinct Animal Crackers Scene, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

I also created coordinating fabrics of dots, stripes, and a sort of geometric print. I love the rainbow effect created in the Cookie Squares print below.

Cookie Squares, swatch 8" x 8" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

Sprinkle Dots, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

Sprinkle Stripe Pink, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

Sprinkle Stripe Cookie, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

Sprinkle Stripe Blue, fat quarter 21" x 18" view shown. Click image to see print in yardage.

I had fun learning about several extinct animals and creating this collection. The collection is available for sale, and fabric can be purchased of these prints by clicking on their image or by going here to see the entire collection.

My next post will be about my entry in the current Mid-Century Cocktail Dress contest. That entry is another fun one, as it was inspired by a board game.

Retro Rainbow Hat and more!

This week's Spoonflower Fabric of the Week contest called for Hat Patterns that fit on one yard of fabric. I am not much of a hat wearer, besides cloche hats, and even then I typically only wear them in the fall and winter. I wanted to design something for summer, and something I would possibly wear. Unfortunately, I had to get my computer fixed last fall, and lost saved files and bookmarks of hat resources. Luckily, I found an awesome vintage hat pattern.

Click image to go to the fabric page.

My entry is Retro Rainbow Hat. This vintage pattern is made so that the hat can accommodate a ponytail. I thought that detail would be perfect for summer. I had to modify the pattern a bit and fix some errors before I added my designs to the pattern pieces. The crown of the hat has faux stitching in faded rainbow colors on a light tan background. The brim is made up of "petals" that have faded rainbow arcs on them that follow the shape of the pattern pieces. The lining pieces are solid colors of the rainbow colors used for the design. I guessed at the sizes needed for the bias cording, and gave them rainbow stripes on a tan background. Since there was extra space, I also included pattern pieces to make two keychain fobs. I am currently waiting for the fabric to arrive so I can make it! More details on the hat will come in the project post.

You can vote for this week's Spoonflower contest here. There are not many entries this week, but they are still great and cover a variety of styles. Voting for this contest ends Wednesday.

I'm on a slight retro kick, and it started with this entry, "Retro Sewing Stripe" for the Sewing Celebration contest. It finished 47th out of 111 entries.

Click image to go to fabric page.

It's in a much softer colorway than I'm used to doing, but it works well for this design. The fun stripe is made up of zigzag stitches, pins, straight stitches, buttons, needles, and bobbins.

The Book Love fabric contest was one of my favorites because I love books. I haven't been reading as much as I would like lately, but nothing compares to a good book. "Ode to the Keeper of the Books" was my entry, and placed 99th out of 143 entries.

Click image to go to fabric page.

The print is made up of elements representing three major genres (horror, adventure, fantasy) over an open book. In the background are the words "horror adventure fantasy" repeated in a transparent brown. The whole print uses transparent colors at certain areas, and adds to the idea of imagining book scenes. It was fun to do, even though it took quite a while to create. I still have to get a proof of this to see how it will print. (I have no idea at this point!)

For the Bag Pattern contest I entered "Creativity Tote", which finished 44th out of 76 entries. The kit prints on one yard of fabric.

Click image to go to fabric page.

"Creativity Tote" is an art tote bag that can grow with a child. It has pockets to hold items such as crayon boxes, scissors, pencils, markers, glue, glitter, paints, and whatever else needed to create works of art. The right side is designed to have elastic to hold coloring books, construction paper, coloring pads, and art paper pads up to 9" x 12". The tote has a flap with hook and loop tape closure that allows the tote to expand. I also included a name tag on the back of the tote for the child's information. The white shapes print pieces are made so that the child can draw on the pattern pieces to create images from the shapes. I haven't made this kit available for sale yet.

I have some patterns done for upcoming contests already (!), but I will wait to show them until it's time for their contest. Please check out the Hat Pattern contest at Spoonflower, and vote for your favorites.

Winter Wrap Up

This post will be a summary of some projects and designs from this past winter. It's officially spring; when did THAT happen? (I know it was yesterday, but where did the time go)? Well, I will try my best to get back to regular posting. Starting with this post.

1. Cookie Advent Calendar found here at Spoonflower.

I designed this Advent Calendar for the Spoonflower Advent Calendar contest. The yard sized kit includes cookies, oven mitt (not pictured), cookie sheet, and instructions. I used hook and loop tape to attach the cookies to the cookie sheet. I also put a piece of board inside the cookie sheet (left the top open then sewed it shut) to add some stability to it. The idea is that the oven mitt (I will add pictures of it to this post later; I thought I had a good picture of it) holds the cookies until they are needed for the countdown. I did make a few changes after getting my fabric and making it. The "7" heart cookie wasn't the right red I used and I changed the "1" and "13" to black since the white didn't show up well against the yellow. "Cookie Advent Calendar" finished 9th, and was my second time making the Top Ten.

2. Road Trip Collection. Complete collection can be found here at Spoonflower.

Printed swatches of the current collection

My "Road Trip Coordinates Sampler" placed 170/200 in the Coordinates Contest at Spoonflower. There were a lot of great collections! I'm really happy with how the designs printed. I do have another stripe that I will add to the collection, but it will but solid colors. I'm really happy with Film Strip Stripe. It actually lines up with 35mm film, frames and perforations! (Well, the film I compared it to wasn't Kodak, so the perforations didn't line up at a certain point, but I'm sure it would line up exactly with other film). I still have ideas for two more prints, but haven't started them yet. They will eventually be added to the collection.

3. Contest results!
* Evergreens- Retro Evergreens 108/149
* Coordinates- Road Trip Coordinate Sampler 170/200
* Cityscape- St. Louis Skyline Border Print 57/180
* Art Deco- Deco Geometric Teal Medium 136/275
* Jellyfish- Dangerous Beauty 69/226
* Bicycle- Simple Bicycles Green 65/199

I am working on two contest entries right now. One is a kit, and will have new coordinating prints. The other is a print being done is a style I haven't done before. So far, so good. I will have an easy project in an upcoming post.

Life is a Roller Coaster

I apologize for the lack of posts. I have been working on several fabric designs (plushie pattern and bowling print, among others), getting another online store setup, and trying to not go crazy. The picture below perfectly describes how I feel right now. Minus being around palm trees.

Tom Everhart's "Nobody Barks in L.A." One of my favorites.

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster right now. Yesterday, I got some awesome news that made me happy and excited. Today, I found out something health related that has me very worried and scared. The way I look at it, though, the only way to go is up. I need to stay optimistic and make sure my work is full of fun. Expect some more fun designs in future posts!