Use Print-on-Demand to build your business identity
Print-on-demand, the ability to create custom items as needed—rather than in large quantities in anticipation of future needs—has become one of the defining phenomena of this digital age.
Art of the Bag: Penina’s Top Ten
As I write this post, a personal Pinterest board I’ve titled, “Art of the Bag” has 136 pins. That’s less than I feared, but still quite a lot of information to process in pursuit of functional beauty. I considered starting a new board (which would bring the total to […]
Custom Window Seat Cushion: Carrie’s Kitchen
This was a fun custom fabric project, tweaking the colors of my Pointillist Stripes pattern for a kitchen window seat cushion.
New Downloadable Vector Pattern: Floral Interlock
Just added to my shop on Creative Market, this new pattern tile was sparked by a 17th century Dutch motif.
The inspiration was a beautiful Dutch reproduction…
Click here to get this shirt for a bossy mom (or mum), or to throw your own weight around.
This started out as a personal project, for myself and a couple of mom friends. We have varying opinions […]
Fabric-covered Concertina Books
At a Craft & Folk Art Museum CRAFTlab Workshop this weekend, I got to try out some of my fabric patterns on these little accordion (or concertina, because it sounds fancy) books. Printed at half scale, the patterns looked really good on these little books (the square book […]
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.
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 […]
This was one of the promotional items created for the release of Westwood Studios’ PC game, Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny.
Researching products with a natural, hand-tooled feel for the semi-medieval fantasy role playing game, I found a bound journal at a […]
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