Spoonflower - 2015 Tea Towel Calendar contest

The Spoonflower 2015 Calendar Tea Towel contest is underway and I have entered again this year. I have noticed that over the last four years I have always adapted a recent design into a tea towel for this particular Spoonflower contest. If I'm honest, as my design time is always limited, I think this trend comes from the necessity to come up with something at the last minute! However I like to enter this contest, it is becoming a bit of a tradition, even if only have a tea towel printed up with my design on it for my Mum! 
It is also nice (and very useful of course!) to look back on old work and take stock of things, how my style may be changing and improving. So I have grouped together my four tea towels and the patterns which inspired them. It is interesting to see how they were adapted for the contests.

1. Owls in the Kitchen. This design was created for Spoonflower and then adapted to become the 2012 tea towel calendar.

2. Laughing Owls. This design was created for Spoonflower's Extinct Animals contest. The design was then adapted to create the 2013 Tea Towel Calendar.

3. Buon Appetito. This design was created for Spoonflower's Retro Kitchen contest which was colour palette restricted. I therefore changed the colours along with the design to create my 2014 Tea Towel Calendar design.

4. Cut Me Up. This design is a weekly planner and was recently created for a freebie designer download, available here. I changed the colours (as I didn't feel that black was suitable for the kitchen) and the layout to incorporate a 2015 Calendar Tea Towel.

Voting closes on Tuesday 4th November and the winners will be announced on Thursday 6th November!

Spoonflower Competition 'Fall leaves'

Hi all, bouncing back from my little set back this week I was amazed to see that the next Spoonflower competition seemed set up especially for me! With the title 'Fall leaves' what more could I do. Taking inspiration and using 'MY' leaf designs (which were so lovingly copied by a lady last week) I have put them together again to create an entry called Autumn Carpet. 

Please feel free to vote if you have a Spoonflower account or just take a look at my design here. Thanks to all who gave me support and comforting words over the last few days. The only thing to do is keep creating original artwork and beat the shallow people who think it is ok to copy!

Spoonflower Tea Towel 2014 Calendar design

I had a busy weekend but managed to set some time aside to do some designing. 
As with tradition I cannot miss out on the Spoonflower Tea Towel Calendar contest. This year I moved on from Owls (my 2013 and 2012 both had Owl designs as themes) and I was inspired by a 1950's cook book which I treasure. So I hope this Tea Towel might inspire you on a day when you can't think what to put on the menu. There are some lovely illustrations of Fish, Meats, Pasta and Cakes to give you ideas. Buon appetito!

See below the complete tea towel design and some details of the Illustrations. Of course, if you are able, vote for my design directly on the Spoonflower site here.

Spoonflower "Retro Kitchen"

I have entered the latest Spoonflower competition which held the theme of Retro Kitchen. I own an Italian recipe book dated 1960 which apart from being full of lovely dishes to cook, it also contains some lovely illustrations. I have used the illustration style to create 8 of my own illustrations which in turn create my fabric design. The repeat is very simple but I think it reflects a late "fifties" style, very sparse and a bit faded. The background has a texture designed to create a linen feel to the finished printed fabric. See the seamless repeat, which by the way is called a half-brick repeat... (see I am learning something), HERE on Flickr.

My Bookshelf

I had the bright idea to create a design yesterday afternoon for the Spoonflower contest with the theme "Books". I was very short for time (the deadline was midnight yesterday) but I really wanted to take part in a competition again... am I addicted?

Well this is the result, the idea was quite an obvious one as I have already noticed lots of entries which have more or less the same theme of a Bookshelf. My colour palette was one of my most "unthought out ones" but I do like the repeat.

The repeat and two details here on Flickr, or you can see the original on Spoonflower.

Jelly Wellies

I have mocked up a pair of wellington boots (well actually only one... but as you know they come in pairs!) using my Moon jellyfish design. I would love a pair of these myself to go walking along Lincolnshire beaches in the winter.
The excuse for my Jelly Wellies is to let you all know my results in the Spoonflower Jellyfish Competition. I was placed 58th out of 226 entrants with 177 votes!

Starfish Flip-Flops

Do you remember my Starfish design?
Well I mocked up some Flip-Flops to celebrate my result in the Spoonflower Ditsy Competition. I came 28th with 320 votes and there were 214 designs entered in the competition.
There is still room for improvement but I am very pleased.
I can imagine that a pair of wellington boots would also look great with this design on them... to walk along the beach in the winter months.

"Flowery" Moon Jellyfish

Just for a change I am posting my entry for the Spoonflower Competition, this weeks theme... "Jellyfish". I have chosen Moon Jellyfish as inspiration for my design, they are also known as common jellyfish or saucer jelly. They can grow to 25 - 40 cm in diameter (I had imagined them to be smaller) and they are easily recognisable by four horseshoe shaped gonads. Capable of limited motion they tend to drift with the current. In my design I have experimented with gradients try to create a "glowing" effect, I don't know how this will print up on fabric? As a result I find the design very "flowery", my Moon Jellyfish remind me of floating flower heads!
Look closer on FLICKR or SPOONFLOWER.

P.S. My Art Deco Lion was placed 75th out of 275 entries with 211 votes in the Spoonflower Art Deco Competition. Thats quite bad but defending my design I still like my Lion's head, I think the colours let the side down. Hope to do better next time round.

Starfish or sea stars

Here is my entry for the Ditsy Sea Creatures competition at Spoonflower. I am really happy with my colour palette this time round, (unlike my Art Deco entry, see previous January post). I don't have much more to say about this design, just that I chose a subject which was graphically interesting and I made a "scattered" ditsy pattern from it!

Anyway I like it... I hope you do too.

It is possible to see a bigger version on FLICKR or the repeat pattern on SPOONFLOWER.

Art Deco

The latest Spoonflower competition was ART DECO, which, influenced all areas of design and was a purely decorative style. So it was a bit tough to choose just one motif or area of design to create my pattern. I love Art Deco jewellery and was very tempted to incorporate it in my design. However, at the last minute I saw a wonderful balcony in Turin with the face of a Lion, typically Art Deco I decided on my theme!

I am pleased at how the repeat worked out. The face of the Lion is very dominant and I used elements which bring to mind wrought iron grids, railings or balconies to complete the design. I am NOT pleased with my colour palette... I'm not sure if I'm supposed to admit that, but its the truth. Although I used a typical Art Deco palette I find the finished effect a bit flat. Maybe if I had had a little more time to experiment I might have been more content with the final result. The deadline for the competition has now expired so I can't change anything at the moment. In fact I am moving on to the next competition which is "Ditsy Sea Creatures". As my last ditsy design was a bit of a disaster I had better make sure I have time to work things out better this time. I will keep you all informed about both ART DECO and DITSY designs.

Crazy Coffee pots

I have been designing some fabric using vintage coffee pots to enter in the Spoonflower Competition "Outdated Technology". These electric and stove espresso coffee makers have pretty crazy designs, one looks like a Dalek and another looks like a rocket! Although I'm sure the technology used in more modern coffee makers hasn't changed much, luckily the product design has come on leaps and bounds.

Design details can be seen on FLICKR and the design repeat can be seen directly on the SPOONFLOWER site.

Spring Kites

The above repeat pattern is called Spring Kites and has been entered in the Spoonflower small print competition. This time my design was'nt excluded from the competition and voting has already begun. I find it quite difficult to do small and ditsy prints, I feel much more at home with large scale repeats. However, this has been an excellent exercise for me, I have even experimented with a white background and a spring colour palette.

I'm afraid this will be my last entry for 2011 in the Spoonflower competitions as we are now super busy in the "posh gift shop" and everything else takes second place... EVERYTHING!
I will still be posting news but I doubt if I will have a lot of time for designing.

P.S. My Owl Tea Towel Calendar was classified 39th with 291 votes out of 146 entries in the last Spoonflower competition.

Owl Tea towel - 2012 Calendar

This is my entry for the Spoonflower competition to design a tea towel calendar for 2012. I have developed my Owl kitchen theme to include a tea towel design. The competition is now closed and the voting has already started so not long to wait to learn who has won. I have seen lots of good entries so it will be difficult to get in the top ten but you never know? I will post results soon.

Click to see FLICKR version, to see SPOONFLOWER version.

More Teapots

My Teapot designs came 7th (out of 124 entrants) with a total of 462 votes in the latest Spoonflower Competition... and needless to say I am over the moon with the result. While I was asleep and dreaming of other designs I sold six fat quarters worth of my teapots! It is such a nice feeling to think that after all my hard work lots of people appreciate my designs.

Above you will find a photo of the fat quarter with all seven designs and some more examples of my teapots. They are available to buy directly from Spoonflower for only 11 dollars (all seven) . In the meantime watch this space for more designs.

Miniature Teapots

Just for a change I have sent in a design to the latest Spoonflower competition. It was to make a hanging ornament out of one of their swatches (8 inches by 8 inches). I had a few ideas but decided on Miniature Teapots. I designed 7 of them to fit on a fat quarter of fabric, see 3 of them above. The rest you can see here. Hope you like them! (In a rush no time to write more)

Ditsy Divine II

I was a bit miffed at finding my ditsy design excluded from the voting in the last Spoonflower competition as it was'nt considered ditsy enough. As you have to "live and learn" I decided to give it another go. The design you see above is my Ditsy Divine II and I asked Spoonflower if this would be considered a true ditsy design. One of the 100 (!!!) moderators kindly tweeted me to say "Yes, they would consider it ditsy"... I'm not bothered what the other 99 think, thats good enough for me.

Ditsy Divine

Ditsy definition - "A ditsy print is quite small in scale, and the design motifs are usually scattered or random rather than being ordered in a definable pattern like rows or stripes." So I've learnt something again, Spoonflower is doing me loads of favours by making me get on and do things which before I would'nt have bothered about or thought to do.

My ditsy print has butterflies, "kind of" japanese flowers and leaves, and I've thrown a few hearts in because all the ditsy prints I looked up as reference were very pretty... so I made my design pretty as well. To see the repeat go to my shop on Spoonflower, hope you like it? Wish me good luck in the Ditsy Print Competion... well I must do better than 114th this time!

My very own fabric

My "Hiding from the Fisherman" fabric finally arrived from the US, and I love it. As it was ordered over a month ago I was pretty excited to get my hands on it. I am now busy with plans to make two different items from the fabric but am keeping them a secret for a while longer in case I change my mind. Don't want to build your hopes up to much do I?
I have uploaded a detailed photograph of the fabric on FLICKR mainly for the benefit of Spoonflower members but please feel free to have a look. However I seem to remember that I mentioned the items that I want to make with the fabric in the caption!