Skip to main content

Surface Design


 Hey guys!

I think I finally realized that I love surface design. I never would have guessed this would be something I would get so excited about.

I know it's been a minute, but I am finalizing my swatches for releasing a bunch of fabric designs at once. I don't know if I can really call it a "collection" since they all look a bit different in ways from each other, but they all came from me.



I am using the same process as I had posted about on this blog sometime in 2015.

All of my prints are hand-drawn and then thrown into Photoshop. Sometimes I color them in Photoshop, other times I color them with watercolor pencils and then throw them in for a repeat.

(Excuse the low-resolution, by the way. The actual prints are in 150 dpi and very crisp.)


For this leaves one, I hand-repeated in real life using a quadrant method. I scanned the step before cutting and then filling in white space, and then hand-filled the white space. Whatever I filled in white-space-wise I then traced and made a separate file for. I then scanned that in and used what I drew to fill in the white space on the Photoshop file. It sounds more complicated than it needs to be (maybe it is) but it's the only way I could get it to work and not have to erase a bunch of annoying lines.

So far, this is my favorite print!


Other times, I draw out motifs and then find a way to arrange them later, such as the following ones.



And then I imagine them on a garment....





And then other times, I just draw and end up with something that I color in with watercolor pencils and then scan in, figuring out a repeat afterwards.



I don't know what it is, but there is just a bunch of magic in this all for me. It's relaxing to just doodle and color and then play with color, layout, contrast, etc. It's relatively quick, has some technical skill involved but not too much, and then anyone can make a garment from it once it's proofed and ready on Spoonflower!

I am totally having the best time with this so far!

There still are plans to eventually release PDF sewing patterns (who knows when) and I still am very sewing/design oriented but this right now is bringing me the most joy in design.

Hopefully you too will love to make something soon with these prints!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latch Hook Rug Update

A little under a month ago I received all of my supplies to take on one of the biggest long-term projects I have ever taken on - a self-designed latch hook rug. I don't know why, but I am clearly nuts. So beginning today I am posting photos each month, (preferably on the 1st of each month) progress of this gigantic shag rug. See how I started it here (scroll down past posting of my $10 dress).  This is a photo of it today:  Yes, I used the candelabra for scale. Haha.   This rug is really soft and is fun to run your fingers through.  It doesn't look like much was accomplished, but though the number of packages we have gone through of pre-cut latch hook rug yarn already I have calculated that  we've used over 2500 strands for this ie.) 8 packages. I also just ordered 10 more packages of lime green since that's what I ran out of first and 6 more packages of straw yellow. There is still quite a bit to go, but you see the blue row squares? Each of th
18 comments
Read more

DIY Trapeze Dress

I'm a pretty big fan of tent dresses (or trapeze dresses - call it what you want). They're simple, easy-to-make and you can have many variations of them. These are a fun style to wear for spring and summer!  See this DIY from a Good Housekeeping Crafts book from 1971 - photos at the end of my own trapeze top from a while ago! (Bear with me on the photos here - this book is quite cumbersome and hard to scan.)  Applique patterns, in case you wanted the dress to look EXACTLY like the photo. (But why?)  How to cut the fabric efficiently. (This is actually pretty important cost-wise for you - especially with something this big.)  Using pattern instructions from my patternmaking book from college, I created this swingy trapeze top a bit ago. I used sweater fabric from a thrift store find for the collar of this top.   I also opened up the back on the pattern to have a diamond shape.   It can easily be belted like in this photo fo
Post a Comment
Read more

How Print on Demand Sites Helped Me! And Pros and Cons

I don't know about you, but I don't always have a ton of time.  Well, ok -- maybe that was before the pandemic hit. But one of the things I have learned over time being a designer of sorts and loving fashion design was that it seemed I never had enough time to do/make everything I wanted to have available within a product line to sell. Especially not when I was working a full-time job either!  Bags! Shoes! And yeah, duh -- clothing! It seemed most of my friends who are designers made all of their own items from scratch on their machines and I just didn't want to sit at my machine after working 40+ hours a week. Maybe for myself only but not as a side hustle. But I always had requests from people - "Can you make me something? I want something designed by you!"  I really appreciated the sentiment, but often times it was just as confusing/hard for me as it was for them.  I would sit there and go "How should I adjust this for them? Am I even gonna find that fabri
Post a Comment
Read more