fabric stash, family, miscellaneous

my budding fabric designers

Remember that I shared some of Clare’s artwork a little while back?  Well, I did get a couple of her designs printed.  And Stella wasn’t about to let me order fabric from Clare’s drawings without having some of hers done too.

fabric by Clare (11 yrs old)

These are Clare’s designs (she is 11 years old). We had fat quarters printed; one on cotton and the other on lawn. Clare really enjoyed playing with the scale of her design as well as the repeat options that were offered. We used Spoonflower for these, by the way. It took around a month from placing the initial order to receiving the fabric here in Australia.

fabric by Stella (6 yrs old)

And these two are Stella’s (she is six years old). Once again I ordered fat quarters, one on cotton and one on jersey. Sadly I didn’t think about which way the repeat runs on the jersey one and as a result the stretch runs vertically rather than horizontally due to it being a one-way design. Live and learn!  Stella also enjoyed the process of determining what scale and what repeats to use, and she had very definite ideas about what she preferred.

So, for some close-ups: Clare’s design, in a small scale repeat on cotton.

fabric by Clare (11 yrs old)

Clare’s other design, in a larger scale on lawn.

fabric by Clare (11 yrs old)

And a closer photo of Stella’s designs.

fabric by Stella (6 yrs old)

I ordered fat quarters of each rather than swatches hoping that I would have pieces of a useable size to incorporate into garments or other projects, and I think that they will work fine. We didn’t do any manipulation of their artwork before uploading them to Spoonflower; they were just hand-drawn with metallic textas, scanned in to the computer and uploaded. As a result there are some imperfections, such as a couple of small smudges in Clare’s, but I think that adds to the hand drawn charm! Clare is keen to get her designs up for sale.

I’m heading off to Sewjourn in a few short hours time.  I have many more projects cut cut out than any person could possibly complete in two days.  If you are interested in watching my sewing progress over the weekend I will be uploading potentially dodgy photos to Instagram (I’m thornberry over there) as I complete each garment.  Have a great weekend everyone – I know that I will!