Daddy('s) long legs (not a serious post of course)

This is not a serious post but an excuse to experiment uploading a short film on my blog as I have never done that before. The title is also a terrible pun but I thought it quite funny so you must forgive me my bad taste. The film is only 17 seconds long and if I had realised that it was going to turn out so good I would have made it much longer!
 

I have just returned from a weeks holiday in England and most my time was spent walking along the beach dodging the rain and blustery weather. I am quite a short person and my Dad too so it was quite fun to find that we had grown to such an incredible height in a matter of seconds. So here is 17 seconds of my Dad and I walking along a Lincolnshire beach and we have SUPER LONG LEGS, enjoy :)

Geometric 'CMYK' patterns

After doing a few geometric designs for the Patternbooth blog feature I have carried on experimenting with shapes and putting them into patterns. I quite like the idea of trying to create a bit of movement within the patterns by changing the 'flow' of the colours in the designs. I chose a bright and very bold colour palette of 'CMYK' which is the 4 colour printing process for print and paper. I also put the designs on my trusty 'Sadler Mugs' which is quite a habit of mine. 

P.S. I am having a weeks holiday in good old 'cold and windy' blighty this week so I don't know how much time I will have to blog and such. What with all the Christmas shopping I have to do and all the walks I have to fit in along the Lincolnshire beaches I think my timetable will be quite full! Happy week to you all. x

Dream Design 15 - Maike Thoma

Today I welcome Maike Thoma to Dream Designs. Maike is a German born surface pattern designer who studied fashion and textile design and now works under the name of Patternjots. She explains for us why she has chosen the pattern below as her Dream Design.

Why I love this design ? I love circles. I like to play with shapes and create new shapes by overlapping them. In this design I used "Scandinavian blue" as the accent colour. During my childhood I regularly visited Scandinavian countries and as a result Scandinavian design is very much a dominating theme in my design taste.

I love pattern on home interiors and I would love to see some of my designs on cushions, wallpaper and even on porcelain. For me dreaming big would be designing for Marimekko one day. 

Maike has been working as a fashion designer for almost 20 years and has always had a great passion for surface pattern and textile design. Maike's work is very graphic and she often uses hand drawn elements to create her patterns. Her style can also be very abstract although I find it has a very sophisticated feel to it and she creates a lot of depth in her designs. Lovely colour palettes, shapes, textures and spirals complete her portfolio to date.

After finishing the course "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" she is currently working on her portfolio and website to change her career direction towards surface pattern design. Just recently one of her patterns made it into the final 25 of the Tigerprint Black and White competition.

You can buy some of her lovely work on Society 6 and very soon be able to see her portfolio at www.patternjots.com

Flights of Fancy

The latest Spoonflower competition goes under the name of 'Flights of Fancy'. Such a lovely name I could'nt resist not entering a pattern. The deadline was midnight yesterday and I began my design at about four o'clock in the afternoon... so I could'nt really be too choosy about the final result! I called my design 'Come fly with me' and it is certainly an invite which is hard to overlook. I would just like to add that the competition had a 'restricted colour palette' which means you can only use the colours specified by Spoonflower for this particular competition. For me this was the worst colour palette they have ever given out, so dull and very hard to make the design stand out or work well. It was a challenge and I managed to finish in time but I 'm not super pleased with the result, partly because of the colours and partly because I just could have done a bit better :)
You can see the design on Spoonflower here and of course vote for it if you want to!