New Fabric Designs: Heartwings
Here are three of the palette experiments I’ve been doing with my Heartwings pattern. It was originally inspired by a camouflage design contest on the Spoonflower website, but has long since sparked intriguing color ideas.
Photos are of samples on quilting weight cotton. Available on fabrics from upholstery weight twill […]
New Fabric Designs: Love Chain
I keep coming back to this simple concept, with more ideas for color and stripe widths. It’s turned out to be super popular.
Photos are of samples on quilting weight cotton. Order these patterns on fabrics from upholstery weight twill to super light cotton voile, at Spoonflower.
Unique LA: Penina’s Best of Show
For Mother’s Day, my son agreed to come with me the Unique LA show. It helped a little that we brought and met up with a few teen friends. For the first time, he spent most of the afternoon wandering off with his friends, or on his own. Even so, after […]
New Fabrics Available: More Tiny Argyles
Having photographed these on a black backdrop, I am reminded how much I love the black and lavender combo, which I did explore some last summer. I show off those in a previous post. To purchase (or just to see how they display on Spoonflower), click on […]
Fabric Design Online: Marketing Lessons from a Few Outstanding Independents
Creating and selling surface design work online is a side project I’ve been exploring since last summer. Can it become a viable business?
It depends.
There are a number of sites now that allow you to sell your fabric designs and receive a small commission. They are:
Spoonflower (US based, international shipping) […]
Seamlessly Tiling Wallpaper Posters
I learned about Hanna Werning’s brilliant wallpaper posters from a blog post on Colourlovers, and can’t stop admiring them. What a cool idea!
The patterns repeat seamlessly from poster to poster, and there is plenty of room for improvisation. For my favorite design, called Tiles, Hanna […]
Contemporary Surface Design: Trois Miettes
Today’s post features surface design insights from an interview with Isabelle Kunz, perhaps better known as Trois Miettes. Her clean, upbeat work can be purchased on Spoonflower, Etsy and through her site, as well as at specialty shops in Zürich and Bienne, Switzerland. Her responses exceeded my […]
Custom Fabric Prints: Chrysanthemum Pattern
Ahhh… Now I like them! Spoonflower did a fantastic job of capturing the nuances of the pencil work.
I tried a few different palettes with these outrageous mums, and what you see here are the happy successes. It’s time to pull together some photos of these in use—on upholstry as well […]
“Designing for publications is like dressing for a visit; Designing for textiles is like getting ready to move in.” —Me
These are the issues I am aware of now, at this stage in my exploration of textile and surface design:
Mature my personal, authentic vocabulary of motifs.
These are symbols (with all their archetypal […]
Tiny Argyles Fabric: Palette Tests
I’m documenting my newest set of test swatches. Many more successes this time, and this trio of blacks and whites is my favorite:
This set is a close second. It shimmers in the sun (a break in some otherwise grayish weather), and on the humblest of weaves:
I threw […]
Surface Design: The Evolving Oak Motif
I’m continuing to explore surface design on the Spoonflower site, and just received new fabric samples for an oak motif I’ve been developing over this past summer.
The quilting weight 100% cotton fabric in these photos is $18/yard. Some other fabrics they carry are sateen, knit, twill and canvas. Click here […]
Exploring Surface Design on Spoonflower
Spoonflower is a “fabric printing on demand” service, allowing users to purchase and sell designs that they upload to the site. I’ve always wanted to learn more about surface design, and this turns out to be a fantastic way to do it. The process is slow, since swatches take about 21 days to be […]
Categories
- Buy Design
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Communityology
- Cool Stuff
- Creative Process
- Design
- In Brief
- innovation
- iStockphoto
- Leadership
- Learning All the Time
- Making Projects Work
- Marketing
- Money
- My photos
- My Wifi Life
- Passion Projects
- Pattern Design
- Penina-isms
- People
- Photography
- Portfolio
- Print-on-demand
- Recipes
- Social Networks
- Spoonflower
- Sustainability
- Tech Innovation
- Textile Design
- The Boy
- Tools
- Tutorials
- type
- User Experience
- User Experience Design
- Web Design
Penina is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.