California School of Professional Fabric Design

• Many thanks to Kim at the excellent and always interesting blog TRUE UP ("all about fabric, all the time..") who interviewed me about my life as a student at the California School of Professional Fabric Design. You can see her excellent interview here, and you can check out the school online here. Thanks Kim!

also here are some links to my own blog posts about my fabric design(ing):
Jungle Surface Pattern Design
Creative Every Day!
Painting Flowers
Plaids
Toiles de Jouy

Today's Quote: "You don't have to see the top of the staircase to take the first step." -- Martin Luther King

Of flowers and frogs

Lately I have been real busy with designing for my classes at the California School of Professional Fabric Design where I am "master" student---in my last class, and hopefully close to finishing.

Consequently, I haven't been doing much sewing or beading---only knitting--since it is easily transportable. At least that is what I have been telling myself---but when I got busy and really cleaned and organized my crafting studio space---suddenly I found myself sewing up a little project I had been wanting to try for months! So here is to organized studio space (!) and spring flowers....

a spring flower ! created from some ribbons, vintage button, beads....


and this flower using a vintage hanky and vintage button

these are a (surprise!) gift for one of the faithful attenders of my monthly Needlework Salon---she makes fabulous knit & felted hats---which these will trim nicely. She made the soon-to-be grandbaby these fun froggy felted booties--sized to fit a new born, aren't they fun?

Fabric Journal

I have started a visual fabric journal-- well the journal is sewn--but I am mixing paper and fabrics on each page. The paper is all my own designs---mostly small "roughs" from my fabric design classes (visit the design school here)--in color palettes I ended up not using, or designs I haven't completed. I wanted to create a textile "sample book" or "swatch book" with some of my designs--and so far this is the result. I used grommets and ribbon for the binding. Here the large flowers in purples and green on the pink background are my design--painted in gouache. I eventually chose a very different palette to use with this design.

The left page here is part of a of a flower design I created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and the right page has part of a design painted in watercolors with inked linework (midpage).

On this page the orange arrows on lavender are my design--painted in gouache.

Here the left side is part of a "doodled" design--but I used a very different color palette for the finished design. I drew this in black and white, then scanned it into the computer and colored it in Photoshop. On the right, the dark gold, brown, and red design is another "doodle"--never used. The nice thing about the ribbon/grommet binding is that I can easily add pages as I make them since this is an on-going journal.

Painting Flowers

I have been obsessed this past week with painting an intricate flower design in the Jacobean style---a large design (17"x 24") in 9 colors. This is an assignment for my Fabric Design classes.

Here are some examples of the details---a small part of the overall design which I have completed so far. These photos were taken at my work desk inside--so the colors are not quite true. First I painted a "ground"--the background color (a beige, with some green in the color)---covering the whole 17" x 24" area, then I traced my design onto the ground, then began painting the design. The designing of the pattern and palette took several weeks--with many changes. I painted several "roughs" of small areas of the design, and revised my colors from these roughs--several times. It was a relief to finally get to the actual over-all painting, once I had my colors all mixed to match my approved roughs. The paint is gouache. The outlining is a red archival Pigma felt tip pen.




QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." ---Rachel Carson

Plaids

I have been spending quite a bit of time lately designing plaids in Photoshop--an assignment for my Fabric Design Classes, which hooked me in---so much fun seeing how this color blends with that color! So--here area few of them--I have many, many more---but I like these ones---at least today they are some of my favorites...tomorrow--who knows?





QUOTE FOR THE DAY:
"Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises."
Elizabeth Zimmermann, 1910-1999