paperchase

I love this shop.
I probably spent the best part of an hour in there yesterday looking at all the cards, wrapping paper, note books, journals and other decorative bits and bobs. It's always very inspirational.
I exercised an amount of self restraint whilst I was there and only purchased a couple of things:

I think this is a Carolyn Gavin design (?)

1973 Sanna Annukka

1973 paper&cloth

Jane Ormes

?

I took a few pictures too because buying everything in the shop was just not cost effective.
Taking pictures in a shop is an odd thing. I felt like I was doing something naughty, and that someone would come and throw me out for doing it:

sanderson wallpaper cards

Sanderson wallpaper card

Ellen Giggenbach

girly

It's all gone a bit girly around here:

Today, I'm going into the big city and whilst there I plan to spend a bit of time browsing all the cards, gift wrap, stationery and homewares in the Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road. It's design eye candy goodness overload for me.

I'm also going to see a bit of this at the Barbican:

Happy days.

Storm

I love Tim Minchin - he's a very funny, very talented comedian and musician
If you like him and you like animation then you'll love this. If you are easily offended it might be best not to watch it:

summer top sewing

My recent thrifty purchase of a couple of pillowcases, to make myself some summer tops:

I've also been stashing some liberty fabric for the same purpose, although I must admit I am quite daunted by this prospect as I've never made anything for myself before.
I'm thinking of something like this from the sew mama sew blog:

pic via sew mana sew blog

I have no idea where to start when it comes to clothes patterns. Can anyone recommend any good and  easy to understand patterns/websites for a novice?

On a different note, the results of the Project Selvage are in and sadly I didn't make the top 10.
I knew it would be a toughie. Massive thanks however to everyone who voted for my design.
Undeterred, I've already started putting a Flippers and Kippers collection together and will be selling it via Spoonflower in the not too distant future. Watch this space.

the most lovely things all in one place

On Saturday, we went into London to the North London Vintage Market and the Selvedge Spring Fair.
It was a really nice day weather wise - short sleeves were worn outside for the first time this year.
Both events were relatively close to each other (ish) so we decided to walk instead of using public transport. I've never been to this part of London before. Instead of taking the main roads, we walked through Queens wood from highgate tube station to find the North London Vintage market. You would never imagine you were in London, we couldn't hear any traffic at all - just birds cheeping and chirping.

I could have bought all manner of vintage goodness from the market - it was small, but it was full of stalls selling china, books, clothes, homewares, haberdashery and more.
I purchased a small piece if bark cloth and plan to use it to cover an old lampshade:

The selvedge fair was about a 35 minute walk from the vintage market, and again we took the scenic route avoiding main roads.
I honestly could have purchased something from every one of the tables here - such a well selected group of crafts people were selling their wares.
I had a nice chin wag to my (until now) blog friend Emma - go to her blog, she took more pictures:

pic via Emma Lamb

pic via Emma Lamb

I also chatted to some other stall holders - Catherine Hammerton was especially lovely, as were her wares:

and I totally loved the quirky illustrations and prints by Charlotte Farmer. I purchased one of her cards:

nice paper bag advertising too

After the fair, I bobbed into the Selvedge shop just around the corner, which was also full of loveliness. They had a great Julie Arkell window display:

A lovely day indeed.

It looks like rain

It's actually a beautifully sunny day here today, not a drop of rain in sight. This pleases me because the seeds that I planted at the weekend are all sitting in my greenhouse waiting to pop up and they'll be happy with the sunny warmness of the day.

Here are some patterns with rain clouds that I was working on earlier in the week:

I actually missed the deadline for getting them into the latest spoonflower competition. I had such a faffing day on Friday (which was deadline day) where not much was achieved. I got my mojo back on Monday though and have been working on some more rainy patterns and ideas this week.

To start the day today I had a lovely message from Tallulah in my inbox. Look what she did. Thanks Tallulah, actually, you rock!

a stitchy interlude

I'm sitting here surrounded by little piles of fabric that I need to put away.
Whenever I have an idea of something I want to make in my head, I draw it out first, then pull out lots of bits of fabric that I think might be right for what I want to make - making little piles of things which I think will go together. The piles I am surrounded by at the moment are as a result of this stitched canvas:

which I made as a mother's day present for my mum.
I wish there were more hours in the day for me to sew things and design things all at the same time.

the Pixies, via THePETEBOX

Today I am very much liking this Pixies cover, via THePETEBOX. I think I have probably watched this 10 times already. This man has some serious talent:

If you were thinking you might like to vote for my fabric design in the Project Selvage contest but you haven't quite got round to it yet, please pop over here and do it now - there's only a couple of days voting left.

Semi Finals

Eep! and Wow-Wee! and OMG!
My baby boy fabric design (called Flippers and Kippers) made it to the semi finals of Project Selvage. I am over the moon (doing a silly dance) excited about this.

My design, along with 74 others has been selected from almost 1000 entries and they are all strong designs, this is one tough competition.
The next stage of the competition is the public vote, and this is where I need your help.
I'd be ever so grateful if you could spare a minute to vote for me. The link for voting is below - it's all very self explanatory once you get there - and you don't need to log in or be a member of spoonflower to vote.
You can Click this link to vote

or paste this into your browser bar:
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters/new?contest_id=78

It would be a life changing leap for me in my fledgling design career if I could get into the top 10 of this design competition and inch a bit closer in my quest towards world surface pattern design domination.

Thanks also to all those have have already voted for me and given me such nice feedback about my design. It means a lot to me.

Eep!

tea towels

We don't have a dishwasher (yet - it's on ongoing battle because 'we don't have space' he says, but I will have one someday) so dishes get washed by hand around here, and not normally by me I should add. Then they sit in the drying rack to dry naturally. Bizarre then that we tend to get through quite a few tea towels in a week, but we do.
I bought a new one a few weeks back, from To Dry For. It's currently hanging in my office:

To Dry For were also running a competition to design a tea towel. How could I not?
Here are a few of the designs I put together for the competition:

My entry was actually quite different to those above however. It's the excuse I've been trying to use all my life:

stitched penguin classics

I came across these amazing stitched covers for penguin classics yesterday:

The work is produced by Jillian Tamaki - you can see more about these pieces on her blog here and visit her illustration website here.  All images © Jillian Tamaki

I have a great vintage embroidery pattern which I really want to make a start on, but it will have to wait until I've finished the granny stripe blanket. I just feel better when I finish one thing before starting the next. I think it's about the feeling of accomplishment which I just don't get with lots of UFOs hanging around.

vintage prints

Today, I've been digging around flickr for a bit of vintage print inspiration:

 1. a bit of vintage pink, 2. Vintage Fabric, 3. Vintage Pink and Orange Fabric, 4. Vintage Sheet, 5. red and pink floral, 6. Vintage Pillowcase, 7. vintage floral, 8. Vintage Sheet, 9. vintage floral sheet
 

1. Vintage Fabric Teeny Tiny Roses and Daisies, 2. OGBB fabric yellow white floral, 3. OGBB fabric white floral, 4. Vintage Floral Fabric, 5. Retro/vintage floral fabric, 6. Retro vintage fabric- atomic barkcloth, 7. Vintage fabric, 8. Vintage fabric ~ barkcloth, 9. Atomic Barkcloth

cats with thumbs

I just love this advert, it makes me smile each time I see it. Probably because I think it is actually true that cats behave like this:

and yes, I am following Bertrum Thumbcat on twitter.

flippers and kippers

This is my entry in the Project Selvage competition for a baby boy fabric:

The people at Spoonflower and Michael Miller will choose their top 75 fabrics which will go to the public vote next week.
After voting the top 10 designers need to then design an additional 5 fabrics to form a collection and the voting starts again. I'm keeping everything crossed here.

under the sea

Here are some of my designs that I didn't end up entering into Project Selvage. Although I love these, I have also created some designs that are more just a bit more 'baby boy' (as opposed to 'boy'):

I hope I made the right decision in not selecting these for this competition? It's hard to be objective about your own work sometimes. I'm fortunate in that my husband is also a designer and can give me constructive feedback with a designers eye.