Bees

Spoonflower's latest design contest is called Bees. I had to enter this one. I love bees and could watch them buzzing around flowers all day the noise is so relaxing. They are so important pollinating over 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops, without bees the cost of pollinating food would be so expensive many of our favourites may no longer be produced like broccoli, cucumbers, pumpkins, blueberries, watermelons, apples, cranberries, and cherries, almonds. Plus they make both honey and beeswax. Bees are decreasing so plant a few flowers for them in your garden.
The brief for this weeks contest was "Create a bee-inspired design to be previewed at the fat quarter size (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is Tuesday, April 21st. Voting will open on Thursday, April 23rd" Here's my design called Bees Together, it matches my filet crochet chart on my website (its a free chart) called Here Come The Bees.
To see this weeks entries and vote for the designs you like the link is below. There is no need to sign in and you can vote for as many as you choose.
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=300
I am looking forward to seeing all the other entries.

Which came first the sea dragon or the egg

Yesterday I managed to finish and enter (just in time!) my entry to the "Mythical creature plushie pattern" contest run over at Spoonflowers site. Here's the brief "Create a cut-&-sew pattern to make a plush mythical creature toy. The sewing pattern, with instructions, should fit on a fat quarter of linen-cotton canvas (27" x 18"). Contest will close for entries on February 17, 2015. Voting opens Thursday, February 19th."

So here's my entry "Sea Dragon and Egg" usually I do more complicated cut n sews but decided to keep the pattern simple and let the design shine through. I thought also my doing this the design could be used for an appliqué onto a t-shirt, cushion, bag. There's also a little touch of the metal cogs design to match my other steampunk inspired "Cogs and Gears Collection".
Here's the link to vote for your favourites, no need to sign in and you can vote for as many as you choose.
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=291
I am looking forward to seeing all the other entries.

Custom wallpaper contest

This weeks spoonflower contest is not for fabric, but for wallpaper.
Spoonflower print custom fabric, wallpaper, gift wrap and decals, I know they have done a gift wrap contest before but I think this is their first wallpaper contest.

The brief this weeks was "Floral coloring book wallpaper - At Spoonflower, we like to keep our childlike creativity and curiosity alive. That's why we're oh so excited about this week's contest: floral coloring book wallpaper. Create a black and white design that is ready for crayons, pencils, and markers to go wild. Designs are intended for wallpaper, but previews will be sized as a quarter yard of fabric (21" x 18")"


So I got the pencils, pens and paper out and started drawing flowers. I then scanned the rough images into photoshop, cleaned them up and experimented moving them around and I came up with this design. I enjoyed this contest.

To have a look at all this weeks entries and vote for the ones you like go to
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=244 
just make sure you go all the way down to the bottom of the page and hit submit when you do vote so it is counted, you don't need to sign up to vote

Fabric Design Challenges

Restricted Palette for Whales Contest

In my last post I said I was not teaching this month as its the Easter break (a long break....), so I am concentrating on designing/ making and finishing items, plus having some fun by doing some challenges. So I am trying to enter the 4 challenges/ contests this month (1 each week) that spoonflower.com set on their site. The theme of this weeks contest is fabrics celebrating "whales" Here are the the instructions - All designs submitted have to use a restricted palette chosen by spoonflower (the pic shows the 4 colours and white), designs may include white but not black and will be displayed at 21" X 18" (a fat quarter)

This week, contestants used a restricted jewel-toned color palette to celebrate the most fascinating and magnificent sea creatures - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/#sthash.dXz9lSNq.dpuf

This week, contestants used a restricted jewel-toned color palette to celebrate the most fascinating and magnificent sea creatures - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/#sthash.dXz9lSNq.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. All designs submitted must use a restricted palette, visible below. Previews will be shown at (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is April 1st, 2014. Designs may include white, but should not include black. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. All designs submitted must use a restricted palette, visible below. Previews will be shown at (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is April 1st, 2014. Designs may include white, but should not include black. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. All designs submitted must use a restricted palette, visible below. Previews will be shown at (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is April 1st, 2014. Designs may include white, but should not include black. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

Spoonflower cofounder Stephen Fraser is predicting that whales are going to be huge in 2014. All designs submitted must use a restricted palette, visible below. Previews will be shown at (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is April 1st, 2014. Designs may include white, but should not include black. - See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/upcoming-spoonflower-contests.html#sthash.MmlO5a6J.dpuf

This is my entry called "Going Down" these whales are narwhals also known as the unicorn of the sea. The palette was a definitely a challenge but I enjoyed doing this design and got to use my pen and tablet, I drew the whales in photoshop (its not just for photo editing) I normally outline using real pens and paper and scan into photoshop, to tidy the drawings and colour them, but as I said I decided to have fun/ challenges and work in a different way. In fact this way was much quicker.
You can see this and the other designs entered into this weeks contest at http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=241

You can vote for as many or as few entries as you like (you can even vote for me) or just have a look, no need to sign in or join to vote. Note: you have to go all the way down to the end entry to confirm your vote/ s, there are lots of great entries this week. It so interesting to see how using the same theme and colours so many different ideas are produced.
Now I have voted and are onto next weeks challenge "lilies"

Fabric inspiration for Spoonflower Contests

I have been inspired with some of Spoonflowers latest fabric designing contests and have entered into a few up-and-coming ones. I think it can be a bit addictive, plus I really enjoy seeing what the other designers have created. 
This is for the current contest  "Holiday Cocktail Napkin Set Fabric" 
My design is a set of Ivy leaf shaped cocktail napkins. A fat quarter makes 4 double sided or 8 single sided cocktail napkins. Recipes include Ginger punch, Eggnog, Orange & cranberry fizz and Mulled wine. I ordered some fabric and it is somewhere in the post I'll make up my napkins and post some pics here. Hopefully before Christmas (my post is really bad)

This is for the contest starting on Thursday evening Spoonflower are partnering with Mollie Makes Magazine for this one. Its called Flights of Fancy and has a restricted palette, the brief was - Create a bird or flight-related fabric design (repeating) that uses the following palette grey, light teal, apple green and pale yellow. I have created a design We Fly with lots of humming birds (I have always liked humming birds), again this print is also somewhere in the post.

And this one is for the Nasher/ Matisse Contest starting on 24th November. Spoonflower are this time partnering with The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University for a contest to design textiles that would look at home in a Matisse painting. Entries must use the specified colour palette (RGB hex codes: #DE8371, #C33855, #D1CC56, #2E486B, #FFFFFF). Please do NOT recreate a textile in the images but instead create a new design with this palette.So this is what I have entered it a Floral Matisse inspired design.