Illustration Friday - Return

The place I always return to.

The River Dart in Totnes, my home. This is an old linocut with some new digital colour added. It's a view from my mothers home. I cut the plate whilst sitting on the bank of the river with this view in front of me.

Kids Corner Gardening Club

I was asked to design a poster for a kids gardening club in the Leechwell Garden, so I came up with this image using my tree of life drawing from a fabric collection of mine.

 This garden is just down the path from me and is run by the community. It's the most lovely garden. The climbing frame is an old fallen tree, a stream runs through it from the ancient Leechwells, there are alsorts of beautiful edible plants and herbs and now there will be an area for children to grow their own veggies and flowers. It's an opportunity for the kids to get their hads dirty and have some fun growing things to eat. If you are from around here come along and join in

Another cheater quilt

Having been intrigued by the 'cheater quilt' as an idea (a 'cheater quilt' is a quilt top in one large piece ready to add batting and a back, which, once sewn up has the look of a patchwork and applique design), I had designed one with 'robots' as it's main motif so I wanted to create another one with a more traditional theme. Talk about one extreme to the other!

I have a lovely book called 'Folk Art Motifs of Pennsylvania' by Frances Litchen. I found it in a charity shop (thrift shop) for pennies and it gave me the starting point I was looking for. This design is most definately not a traditional Pennsylvanian Dutch quilt design from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, but it is the inspiration. The colours are my favourite jewel colours and much more 21st century. I hope I have complemented the traditions of the quilters and can make people smile.

I will be sampling it from Spoonflower soon, and then I'll make it up and show you when all is sewn up and finished, then hopefully you will be able to buy it.

Edit - I've not made the quilt yet but I thought you might like to see the fabric

Sunflower Linocut

I thought I would show you an old lino cut print that it inspired a popular a fabric of mine. I'm going to make it into a limited edition of prints from the original plate.

Ooops I got distracted!

I was perusing 'Print and Pattern' and noticed this competition to design socks for 'Sock it to me' so I couldn't resist some fun tweaking a few of my old patterns to turn them into socks. Not a chance of winning but smallest son would like a pair of car socks please!

Now I must stop getting so easily distracted and sort out my tractor fabric that I have been working on for ages! (and finish 'Kitty Cat' cut and sew fabric... and my new garden... and paint the hall... cook dinner for my mother as it's Mothers Day... I need to sew up some 'campervans'... sort out my new etsy shop... order new fabric from Spoonflower......I could go on and on writing a huge to do list but then I think it would freak me out and I would end up finding more displacement activities and distractions!)

Kitty Cat

This is potentially another cut and sew fabric called Kitty Cat.  Don't worry once made up and stuffed Kitty's head is sewn on, but admittedly the headless body on the flat fabric is a bit weird. Kitty also has a kitten to fit into a pocket on her body.
This is still work in progress. I am still deciding whether to make the background plain or patterned and the colours won't be finalised until I get the samples from Spoonflower. There will also be a repeating fabric with Kitty Cat as the motif.

Here is the fabric, although the photo doesn't do it justice as it's bleached out the colours which are much more vibrant in reality.

Illustration Friday - Yield

It was the most beautiful sunny early Spring weather coinciding with that time of year when my lovely man digs the garden, weeding out the mass of dandelions and forks in lots of lovely compost to ensure the best yield possible from our veggie patch.

I was drawing him doing this and realised he could be a great way to illustrate this weeks topic 'yield' for Illustration Friday. I also wanted to experiment with a more grown up image rather than my usual children's illustrative style .... however .... I am not sure whether I have achieved this!

Robots Galore

This weeks contest over on Spoonflower is to create a 'Robot Cheater Quilt'. A 'cheater quilt' is a quilt top in one large piece ready to add batting and a back, which, once sewn up has the look of a patchwork and applique design.

This is an idea that I have been mulling over for a while. So although not the subject matter I was contemplating I liked it as a challenge, treating it as an experiment, with a view to this being a quilt for a cot or a play mat. The competition entries will be viewable from Thursday onwards, but I am looking forward to the sample arriving and making it up. What do you think?

Edit -  I haven't made the quilt yet but I thought you might like to see a photo of the actual fabric.