{design seeds}

"Dude, you on Facebook again?"  asks Ronon the Kiwi Bird

Ronon the Kiwi Bird sits on my desk in my bedroom and today while I was hooked up and printing, I was making a quick visit to FB and he sort of leaned forward and scolded me. No more Bubble Witch for you! Get to work! Ronon is one of my creative muses. I crocheted him about two years ago using recycled yarn. He has a fun little surfer dude necklace on too that you can't see in this picture.  I might have to persuade Ronon to participate in a photo shoot one of these days.

I have decided that one of my goals before the end of summer is to start a stitch and fabric journal, one that will be a working journal of embroidery ideas, slow cloth concepts and a place where I can stick little snipets of fabric. Something I can carry in my purse/duffle bag for those trips to the thrift shops and flea markets. I am pretty good at just letting the scraps and bits speak to me, but every now and again, I will look at a piece and wonder if its the right blue, or if it has the right texture for a piece I am already working on.

One of my favorite places to visit for color inspiration is this amazing little corner on the net called {design seeds}.  If I find myself, colors not coming together as I might like them to, I wander over there and have a look around at all the color yumminess. Not only do I find palettes that I think would work in my own designing, I often depart considering things I might otherwise pass by for color inspiration.

Here are a few of my recent favorites....

Now I am off to put down a few Snow Angel stitches. 

abstract cross stitch concepts

Late last night and this morning I spent some time working on a few abstract concepts for cross stitch. They are based on pastel drawings I had done some time ago tangled up with my more recent fascination with circles and metals.  I had originally thought to work with textiles and take a slow cloth approach to my translations, but after putzing around last night and waking in the middle of the night with more thoughts about it, I thought I might try some of this with my first love, cross stitch!

cm designs copyright 2011

cm designs copyright 2011

cm designs copyright 2011

These have charted up much like I paint.  There are a lot of colors involved, on average 40 per piece. The pieces are small, but I think that they will be all the more dynamic because of the number of colors.  They are definitely a departure from my usual whimsical stuff!  More to come, but for now I am off to finish up a hat on snowman and wait for the mailman....I need my plastic bags so I can finish up a few pattern orders for a patient customers!

Creative 365: Day 52 First painted fabric and cross stitch design the night before

I have started hand painting fabric using scraps of cotton muslin I have acquired. This piece was started last night and I played with it a little more this morning. While out assessing my container garden yesterday, trying to decide just how much I had to do before I would be ready to plant (and there is A LOT to do!) I noticed on the deck circles where the pots had been sitting on the wood. Sort of like condensation rings on a table. Around those rings, dirt smudges and splatters where the spring rains had splashed the soil out of the containers. Lots of texture and organic 'stuff'.  That's what I am trying to capture here.

After finishing Bug Bungalow, I realized that I did not have anything else charted to start on! While my designs usually have a fair amount of backstitching, I started playing with this design without it. It is a challenge for me as a designer, as I have always used backstitching to define my illustrations, their expressions and tiny details. I wanted to try and build that same definition with shapes this time. The colors will be bright and bold, and hope to give the illusion of construction paper pieces cut out and glued down.Still have some work to do, and as I am waiting for fabric from Wichelt Imports to stitch my model on, I have some time for the fine tuning!

Spoonflower: Cat Contest

Spoonflower's new contest calls for a cat-themed fabric. (No Dogs Allowed!). It has been awhile since I have entered a contest there, but with the this theme I couldn't resist!

This pattern was inspired by the family cat, Eddy. It first appeared as a cross stitch pattern I did some years ago (something like 2005 if I'm not mistaken) called "Every Life Should Have 9 Cats".

I reworked him in Illustrator using the cross stitch design as a template.

Classes are done for the semester, and I've got a whole list of 'gotta try that's' lined up!

Playing with fabric design

I  have been playing around with quilt fabric design using some of my own illustrations from my cross stitch design. This is some of what I have done so far. I still have some serious tweaking to do with the colors. This turquoise is coming up reeeeally bright and not quite as it did on my Mac, and printing comps I found that it was pretty glaring and not as cool and icey as I had wanted it to be. Once I get the adjustments done, I will post them again for comparison.  I might need to run over to ColourLovers to play with hexcodes and palletes to get the look I really want. 

I am also working on another series using Jepedo from my FernFolk series and have started with a palette that I made in ColourLovers.  I am definately thinking it is the better way to pick the colors as you can see how they work off each other immediately. I want to work through a few different color schemes as well.

Color by COLOURlovers

My goal?  To finally get a line that I feel really good about (am almost there!) and get into designing fabric along with the needlework designing. I am envisioning a combination of the two. Maybe fabric that is coordinated with the cross stitch design for home interiors. Quilts, pillows, etc. 

The Color of Emotion

After charting a few new Little Snowballz patterns last night, I opened up Photoshop and started playing with color and texture. With everything that is going on with my dad and after my post yesterday, I wanted to put color to those emotions I was feeling.

Right now of course there is a lot of black and a range of greys, but color working its way to the surface. Those brighter memories trying to find space.

I hope to work further with this image and incorporate the elements in textile form, and maybe even do something with the acrylics that have sat for too long.