Blog hop!

Hello everyone!

Today I am part of something very exciting - the Passion for Pattern bloghop. You’ve probably just arrived here from the wonderful blog of Michelle Drew. After you have read my post, make sure you visit Njeri Designs who has some great designs to show you. If you have only just found the hop, pop over to Claire’s blog where you can get started and join in the fun! The image above is from my "Pocket full of posies" collection.

This is the perfect time to blog as I have recently finished the surface pattern e course I started last year. I can't believe the course has finished! I'm so sad about this as it was great fun and provided me with much needed daily organisation and motivation. Taking this course was one of the best decisions I have ever made as I have now amassed a huge collection of patterns and networked with hundreds of brilliant and lovely people. I really hope to meet some of them in person soon. I'd highly recommend this amazing course created and run by the lovely Rachael Taylor and Beth Nicholls.

Over the next few weeks and months I'll be putting my first patterns into production. I'll be starting small by producing cards and prints and selling via Etsy and Folksy (shops soon to open). I then hope to produce some textile products with my own fabric printed via my Spoonflower shop. I currently have cushion covers and placements available on Envelop.

In a moment I'll leave you with a selection of some of the patterns I have created over the course, but before I do I have one more thing to share. My new website will be going live very soon! I am so excited about this as my current website was a bit of a work in progress and only showed my illustration work. The new site will show all my work and the design feels very me and really reflects my illustration and pattern styles. I am really proud of it and I hope you will like it too! It has also been a great collaboration between myself and my web developer (and fiance) Simon Childs. Please check back here as I will be announcing the launch very soon. You can also follow me on Twitter and if you're interested in web development you can follow Simon on Twitter too.

Thanks for reading and thank you to Claire for creating this wonderful opportunity :o)

Spring Fever and great news!

HELLO everyone! It's been a while since my last post but I have been so busy- sorry :o)

I currently have that spring fever that I am sure you are all gladly suffering from ... longer days and lighter evenings, birdsong, freshly cut grass and BBQ heaven. This week has given me back my motivation and I cannot wait to get started on some new pattern collections and illustrations. I am particularly excited at the moment as I received some excellent news on Friday. My boss has agreed to let me go part-time starting in April yippeee!! This means I will have two extra days a week to spend designing and illustrating and giving my career the push it needs. 

The image above was created as part of the fantastic Surface Pattern e Course. We were asked to create a design inspired by the 2012 Olympics. I wasn't looking forward to this challenge to be honest as I don't have much interest in sport and felt a little stranded. So I decided my design needed to be fun and full of energy and I think I've cracked it. Again I wasn't even sure of the end result as it didn't feel very "me". The design has really grown on me though and now I kind of love it. It feels really fresh and captures that sense of energy and I really hope it appeals to the teenage market. The idea was for this image to be mocked up on a t-shirt which I haven't done yet but I really think it will work. Funnily enough I've also become a little bit more energetic myself and have started running and I'll be cycling to work this week. Maybe Olympic fever is catching.

Happy Spring to you all :o)

Lovely Fabric Design and things to buy.

See my Envelop shop for fabric items you can buy!

I've always wanted to create fabric designs and now thanks to the internet, again I can. Envelop allows artists to upload their designs for use on articles they sell. When a customer orders the item they print it, make it and send it and then you get a share of the sale price. This is perfect for me as whilst I have time to design when I get in from work I'm a little too busy and tired to produce items and run a shop as well.

I really hope people like my designs and buy something. I'll be adding more colour-ways of this design shortly which will also be available to buy as cushions. Watch this space as over the next few weeks I'll be adding different designs to printed on table runners and cushions etc.