What a Success!

The day has come, yes it's finally arrived. I got confirmation today of the ... wait I'm jumping ahead of myself here.

Remember I told you last time that I'd had the privilege of working with someone, creating designs for her, sometimes using her drawings and sometimes just getting a brief? Well ... you don't? best you go and read my last post then hey!

For those of you who do, My clients name is Dorothy and she's a lovely person, a pleasure to work with. She's been really busy since I sent her the designs, they are all uploaded onto Woven Monkey a great printing site in the UK and Spoonflower in the USA. She will also be uploading her work onto Print Me Pretty in the UK.

As she is a hop farmer, and is also just started selling her hops to home brewers, her fabrics revolve around that subject. Wait till you see the rest we're working on.. hehe

Let me tell you folks, you're in for a treat, her fabrics are gorgeous, her ideas and vision, very classy!

These are just some of the designs she has had printed, aren't they stunning?!

 Oh and the baskets.. they are called Sussex Trugs.. really cool hey, I wouldn't mind one. Dorothy doesn't make them, but someone she knows does, and she says that they last a lifetime. If you want to buy a TRUG click HERE.

I hope this has whet your appetite for more info :-)
Below are the links to learn more about this fabric, see all the designs.. about 140 variations and some still in the pipeline. :-)

The Website is called a Bushel of Hops and so all her fabric shops are called that too. psst It's the best place to buy hops for your brilliant home brew beer!

A Bushel of Hops  on Woven Monkey *Here* All the designs are set for sale already :-)
A Bushel of Hops On Spoonflower. *Please note* that these still have to be sample printed before being set for sale, so if there are any that you'd like really urgently, then drop Dorothy or me a line and she'll arrange those to be done first.
Print Me Pretty.. T.B.A  patience dear people all in good time :-)

Oh My Word!

I can't believe that I haven't written in here for so long!
Life has been just crazy and I have gone through a break up in my relationship and a move of countries! So now I'm living in the UK again. My time I spent in Australia was fabulous BUT things change and hopefully move forward, don't they? Please say yes... hehe

Anyway one really great thing happened to me recently. I was interviewed by Print Me Pretty and it was posted in their Blog. If you'd like to read what they have to say, here's the link
http://www.printmepretty.co.uk/2781/Meet-the-Designer---Art-on-Fabric

Thank you Janet I feel very privileged.

I've also been designing for a quilter who wanted her very own fabric. Together we have created a huge number of designs. I'll be talking about them in my next blog update along with the link to her shop so that you can go and see them.. she's still uploading them all and it will take her wee while.

I'm so mad at myself today. I had planned to submit this design into the Spoonflower Weekly Contest for National Parks and was so busy I missed the deadline.. Aaarrrrggggg!!

AFRICAN SAFARI HOT SUMMER DAYS!

To see this design on Spoonflower, just click the caption and it will take you there.
See you soon!

21st Place out of 214! Yippie :-)

I decided that I just couldn't do it. There was no inspiration at all and I was feeling depressed anyway, so what did it matter if I did one or not.
The contest was themed Math. There were no ideas popping into my head.. Until I thought of school days.. LOL then there it was, I could see it in my head.

So I sat down and drew it.... and this is what I ended up with.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3815363

I was quite chuffed with it. When I saw it came 21st I was rather pleased. 

Thanks for visiting :-)

Print Me Pretty

As of yesterday Print Me Pretty has 145 designers who upload their work for their own use and / or to sell. I do both.

I am one of the only two designers to have a personal tag on Print me Pretty . It will take you to all my designs available.

For example Next Year's calendar 2015 is up. I have entered it into the Print Me Pretty Calendar contest Next Month. I'll be ordering these and sending them to mates and family as they can be hemmed with a loop in the hem and a piece of dowel slid in the top and bottom and then hung up... or simply stuck to the fridge with magnets.. LOL.
This is the design :

Found on the 112 cm wide fabric and can be bought as a Fat Quarter

Found on the 150 cm Fabric and should be bought by the meter
 as the Fat quarter sizing does not work on this size fabric yet.

African Inspiration into design on fabric

There was a design contest on Spoonflower to create a fabric design for Rhinoceros. I came up with this one : Please ignore the watermarks, they aren't on the actual design :-)

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3296108

Then I got thinking and came up with these : African Autumn

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3389547

The difference between these two designs is the colour of the Burgundy / Maroon

                                           Masasa.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3344042

Then this version .....  Rhino's and Diamonds.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3391749

And this....             African Diamonds.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3347397

Another ....            Sunspots and Rhinos.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3347402

........................    Windows of Africa.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3347401

..........................   African Ostrich Egg.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3347398

...............................  Diamonds and Crackle

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3347400

Well that's the collection so far.. Oh wait one more but I don't have a picture to show you here.. you'll have to go and have a look. It's a colour adjusted version of the first design on this post, to match the mud background shown in the other designs http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3296106  Called Chipembere ... Rhino.. Small.. Swatch size.

Hope you like them :-)

Block Swap

Lorrin of Enchanted Birk decided that she'd like to host a block swap. So in due course she put a notice up on the QQQ forum about it. Now, I'm not much of a quilter, because I design fabric, but I like to try my hand at it every now and then. I thought about it and decided that I could sew a reasonable looking 12 inch block, so I put my name down. It works like this:
1) send your Address to the person Below you.
2) send your Block to the person Above you.

Easy peasy.

At the end of a couple of weeks Lorrin decided that we had better get it moving so she shut off the application and even though there were only 4 of us doing it, we decided to carry on. Well it's the first time and we feel that in the future more of our members will decide to join in the fun.

This is a picture of the four blocks that were made and sent on.
Lorrin's Shop is Enchanted Birk = https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EnchantedBirk
Sylvie's Shop is Art On Fabric = https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SylviesArtOnFabric
Kym's Shop is Fabric Fascination = https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FabricFascination
Tanya's Shop is Spool and Thimble = https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SpoolandThimble

I've decided that I'll make a quilt with all the blocks I get. It will be a fun special quilt, with the pieces from the QQQ team members. :^D
Cheers till next time,
Sylvie

Moonlight Sonata with Freddie Croaker and the Clockworks!

You might be asking yourself what on earth is this woman on about now. Surely she's finally gone off the edge... and it may be so this time. You tell me!

Spoonflower is having another contest. This is the Theme:

Frogs

Where we live, spring nights tend to turn into joyous and noisy frog parties. To celebrate our amorous little friends, this week's theme is fabric designs featuring frogs. Previews will be show at a swatch size (8" x 8"). Deadline for entry is Tuesday, May 28, 2013.

http://www.spoonflower.com/contests/191  will be the link for this contest when it's in action.. after the 30th May.

My eyes saw 'Noisy Frog Parties' and my mind went back in time to my childhood and the very sound of frog parties that used to lull me to sleep at night. I know now that you can build a pond and frogs will not come and live there, unless you put some tadpoles into the water. A frog will live around and near the pond he or she was born in and will only go back there to spawn.. so if you destroy a pond or a source of water, you can destroy a species of frog.. WOW!
Anyway I digress.. really badly, sorry... Frog Parties, Spring Nights and Joy... these are the keys to my design.
I created a tree frog, ( they're my favourite frog ever), except I didn't want him to be ordinary so I made him a steam punk frog. 

Introducing Freddie Croaker!

I decided that I would have to go all the way and get more involved in the steam punk idea, so I designed nautilus shells and put the hours of the day in them.

Another tree frog hugging a Nautilus Clock.

Next I wanted to create another type of frog that sits on a lily pad ... These chaps would be serenading and backing up Freddie in the Moonlight Sonata. Of course the night sky and rising moon would also have to be created just right to set the mood.....

The clockworks, frogs on watch lily pads,
 back-up singers to Freddie Croaker.

I put it all together and this is what it finally looks like.

Freddie Croaker and the Clockworks, getting ready to sing the Moonlight Sonata to You ,
 should you wish to come on down and join in the FUN!

The night sky, for some reason changes with those fat dark stripes whenever I reduce the picture.. but in actual fact the real deal is the same all the way up. The design can be seen here http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2072125 if you want to see it in yardage etc. 

Feel free to leave comments either here or on the design on Spoonflower... You don't have to be a designer to have an account on Spoonflower, and that's the only way to see the comments written under the designs...some of them are really fun reading.. LOL

My very First Paper Piecing Block

I was surfing the net the other day and saw a beautiful quilted block on Pinterest. Thought to myself... oh I'd love to be able to sew like that. SO I put the question out in our QQQ Team on Etsy, asking how is something like that done and got a few really helpful answers.
This is the quilted block I saw and fell in love with :

http://pinterest.com/pin/5981411977882379/

One of my Etsy friends, Patricia Caldwell of The Butterfly Quilter, said I should look at this site : http://www.averyspecialcollection.com/freepatterns/howto.pdf and another friend steered me towards 

Soma of Whims and Fancies ....who does a LOT of paper piecing.. she has a web site :  http://www.whimsandfancies.com/ where she holds paper piecing hops every month :-) Very interesting... Also she has a paper piecing pattern tutorial for beginners called the School House...

Donna of June Bug Quilts posted a link to a video on Utube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzg78tsF7g that shows paper piecing.... all so very helpful, thank you All!!!

Anyway I digress, I sat down with a cup of hot Bovril, don't do coffee and I've run out of Green tea with Mint... so Bovril it is. and started reading.. I looked through that school house pattern and thought.. Wow that sounds quite simple, but I don't want to do a school house... hmmm Next I looked at the link that Patricia had given me... ummm well a tad more complicated I thought, till I started! 

I had to draw my own pattern out, so I made it an 8 inch block against the 4 1/2 in the pattern. I needed something BIG to start off with.. Then I had to choose my fabrics... that took a wee while and eventually I started...

All I can say is that IT'S TOTAL FUN :^D !!!

This is the outcome :

Of course you should mentally cut off the 1/4 inch seam around the outside edge to get the outside pointy bits be the same as the rest..lol  AND I didn't hand sew the brown handle onto the fan.. i sewed it with the machine... I didn't realise at the time that I was doing that bit wrong.. but I still sort of like how I 'fixed' it..I think I'll change it later though..  hehe 

It's nowhere near the first photo, but I think it's a great start.. don't you?

The Aftermath and Painted Eggs

In my last post;

I told you all about my talk at the KeriKeri Quilters monthly meeting and the wonderful day I had with them. Quite a few of them had asked me if I'd please turn one of my paintings into a fabric design. So I did and here is is: Guinea Fowl. 

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/1887266 

Since then I've had the pleasure of visiting the Whangarei Quilt Group at their monthly meeting. Yet Again I was openly and warmly accepted. I listened to the speaker of the day who was a supplier of threads. Wow, she had an amazing selection to choose from and some really helpful tips about bobbin winding, and other things I didn't know. I couldn't help myself . I bought a reel of orange variegated cotton thread to use on my Turtle Quilt. 

The bobbin info... okay, I'll pass it on... when you're putting thread onto your bobbin it's apparently VERY important that it isn't done too fast and that the thread is wound on evenly. If it's not done properly you'll have no end of trouble with the thread misbehaving under the fabric. So there you go.. I didn't know that and I've had no end of trouble with my bobbin thread... so next time I wind a bobbin, I'll be taking a heck of a lot more care. :^D 

I've been designing since my last post here and thought I'd show you some results. 

This design is called African Easter Eggs.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/1886525

I've submitted it into the latest Spoonflower Contest 'Painted Eggs'. Click here if you'd like to check out the contest. When you get there, click on the words 'Painted Eggs' to see all the submissions. I cannot tell you which page my design is on, because each time someone clicks on the contest, the design order changes. 

I also did another that I called Ostrich and Eggs : 

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/1894734

Admittedly it was a hard choice to make. which one to submit to the contest :^D 

Back to the great folks of Whangarei. I have here the link to their Quilting Blog if you'd like to see what went on that day.

http://www.quiltwhangarei.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/show-n-tell-march-2013.html 

Leeann, who runs the blog, was really kind to include me in her latest posting. I did a bit of a 'show and tell' there, with some of my quilts that are made from fabrics I designed and had printed, or that I dyed and painted. 

Thanks for visiting.. see you again soon.

Sylvie.

A Chat with Quilters in KeriKeri

It was time. My belly filled with butterflies. Whew I hoped I'd not show how nervous I was. My bullet notes were on the table.. all my paraphernalia laid out in order. All I had to do was open my mouth and talk.
Talk about the thing I loved doing most. You can't put it under one umbrella. It has several titles and they are; Designing Fabric, Playing with Colours, Dyeing Fabric, Helping Quilters get the right colours in their chosen design so that it matches what they want to do...

If you see a design of mine that has fairly simple colours.. not too many half tones ( colours that fade from one to another ) and you like it, but, it's the wrong colours, you can drop me an email and I can look into changing the colours for you to suit you.

I spoke about my background and showed then examples of work from early 2001.

My African Quilt.

This is what it looks like today.
Each section here, except for the black, gold stripes and maroon stripes, was hand dyed and stencilled or painted. I've dragged it around the world with me, thrown it into washing machines with the wash. I wanted to see how well the dyes lasted.. and they have!

I showed them more hand dyed and painted quilt blocks... :

There are a wide range of them and they can only be seen if you visit me OR on www.SylviesArtOnFabric.etsy.com

I have, since May or June last year, begun to design fabric by the yard.. or fat quarter.. on a site called spoonflower, where I have my own studio. www.spoonflower.com/profiles/art_on_fabric
THIS is the place where I can change the colours in some of the designs... for example this design:

Various colourways of the crackle fabrics.

I have these on Spoonflower for sale, you can order them just as they are OR you can contact me and we can discuss colours.. I can change them to look like this:

 or this......

 or this.....

There is no limit to the colours you can get them at.
I can also change the repeat size on MOST of my designs.. either making the print bigger or smaller.. all you have to do is ask.. :^D

My talk went well I thought, The ladies laughed in all the right places and asked me some delightful questions. It was a lovely day. I think we all enjoyed it tremendously!.

These are the Quilters I went to talk to this week.   http://quiltkeri.blogspot.co.nz/

African Safari

I've taken the plunge and entered a competition on Spoonflower.com.  The contest still has some time to go before people can start voting  but it will probably be found HERE

The one I've entered is the Zigzag / Chevron cheater Contest. What it is, is a Cheat Quilt. What? you may ask.. lol....
Well we were invited to design, in a yard of fabric36 inches by the width of the fabric 42 inches, a Quilt Top. You would buy the yard and receive a piece of fabric printed to look like a finished quilt. All you'd have to do is put Batting and Backing fabric with it and sew / quilt it all together.

This is 42 inches wide and 36 inches long.. my African Safari Quilt Top Designed for the Zigzag Spoonflower Contest.

I'm quite excited about this. It took me ages and ages to put it together. I really do hope it was worth the effort; :-D 

Please Please Tweet and Fb and Google+ this post... Especially if you like it :-) Thanks.

An African Quilt

In 2001 I hand dyed and painted some fabric. Then I cut it up and designed a quilt. My Mum sewed it for me. ( I was away on a sailing course so she decided to surprise me and WOW she really did!) This quilt is my favourite that I have ever had, designed or made.

In our Cabin

Laid out on the front deck..please excuse the shadows :-)

I've been thinking on how to pass on the pleasure. Often people who have seen this quilt have said..Sylvie why aren't you making more of these and selling them... well I can't do that here on the yacht.. no space to do all that dyeing! 
So I've come up with a plan.


If you go HERE you'll be able to see the different pieces, carefully laid out in 1 yard lengths with 1/2 an inch between every piece, so that you can now buy the fabric and make your own :-)  I have not included backing or binding but I have some batik dyed crackled fabric that I'll upload as a 'Sixth Section' this can be used as backing if you like.. or just use black, gold, maroon.. etc.. If you like I can upload those colours in Batik Crackle....I can also give you the colour numbers so that you can take your spoonflower colour chart down to a local store and buy something that will match, for your backing.


I have started a collection called 'AFRICA' and it will hold designs for quilts with an African theme.


This is just the first of may I hope.. many? ha ha.. I have three in my head as I write this.. one is already on Spoonflower and the other two are being created...


Let me know if you have any problems locating these designs.. I'm still finding my way around spoonflower. :-p

YUP this is the place to post your FAVOURITE BLOG info ! AND! this time you can also add a little thumbnail photo with it! That will make it so much more fun.

If you scroll down you'll see the HOPPITY HOP about and SHOP place where you can add a photo and a short description of one (max two) of your creations no matter where your shop is!

So give them both a try and lets have some fun! 

Hoppity Hop about and Shop!

So lets all try this again: I'm going to post something first then you give it a try!
Lets have some fun!

The Best Blog Hop in Town!

I'm trying something new. It sounds like fun.
Everyone can participate!
Just click on the blue link below  and add the Name and address of your favourite blog post! It can be your own or someone else's blog. It doesn't matter. You will only be able to do this for a week starting today. So give it a try and lets see how many blogs we can visit in a week.!!

Creative Sewing!

I've done some creative sewing recently and it been a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how it would turn out and I'm not finished with it yet but I thought that maybe you'd all like to see it. I had a crew on board who asked me if I could get her going on something creative while we sailed. That night I thought about it and in the morning I suggested we try sew a Mola style clam. Hmmmm you might say. But recently we'd visited Atutaki in the Cook islands and been educated as to the rarity of these giant clams in the area because the people are eating them before they have time to reproduce. The story about them will be uploaded onto my Sailing blog soon, but in the meantime here are some photo's of the clams.

Clams being bred in captivity.

Clams at various stages of life.

They can grow even larger than this.

Close-up.

Close-up of the work

Sewing it.

The Mola look is there but instead of hiding the stitching I accentuated it. This has created some depth and it has started to look more three dimensional. As I said before, it isn't finished yet but I'm getting there. :-D

A creation from my creation

I wrote a blog about sea stars or starfish a while ago. Well I painted them and sold two to a lovely person in America. She made them into two great cushion covers for her son who is away from home at the moment. I also recently sold another one, so they are selling really well, and I'm a happy girl!

Here are some photo's for you all to see.

A Great Cushion.

Sweet huh!

The two together.

Aren't they great! I just love it when I get photo's of  the final result! Thanks Leslie :-D

My first baby clothes quilt.

One day I was talking to my good friend, and she said she had a ton of baby clothes she just could not stand to part with. So I had seen another etsy member who made baby clothes quilts in her shop. I suggested that she send me the clothes and I would make a quilt out of them for her! She thought that was a great idea and got right on sorting and boxing clothes to send me! She's good, she'd sent me JUST enough clothes to make the twin sized quilt she wanted! This was an excellent project for me, most rag quilts I have made so far, the only creative part is picking the fabrics, the rest is just sewing pinning and cutting. This was fun!! If I couldn't fit a label, or picture, embroidered section of the clothes, then I cut them out and sewed them onto other squares that had nothing on them. I suggest anyone who does rag quilts to give this a try at some point! I would love to do another one, however I would suggest if you are going to do one, try to make most of the fabric cotton clothing, it gets really hard to work with when you had a lot of denim, fleece and corduroy! (and very heavy!)

I wanted to share the end result with everyone, so here it is! Hope you enjoy!
If anyone who reads this wishes to have one made, or wants to learn/ask questions regarding how feel free to email me @ canadianquilts@gmail.com

Any quilters who'd like to join a quilting team on etsy, please click here!!