Digitally printed fabric...i'm loving it!!!

I finally got round to actually printing my tea-time repeat print on to silk using the digital printing facilities at uni. This photograph shows my work actually being printed. I'm really happy with the finished result. It looks really professional and so much more sophisitcated than my previous hand screen-printed fabrics. I'm going to enter in to the realm of digital printing for the majority of my from now on during my MA studies.

Wholecloth Fake Patchwork Quilt idea

Ok, so I'm not really getting what I want out of patchwork. I like the surface pattern that it creates, and I love actually spending the time piecing patchwork together, I find it really relaxing. But I wrote in my MA proposal that I wanted to update the notion of the patchwork quilt, and quilting as a whole. And although I like what I've cdreated so far, its just too 'crafty'. I want my quilts to be contemporary and update the patchwork quilt, radicalize it almost. So I've been working on the idea of creating fake patchwork...producing patchwork digitally and printing it off as a wholecloth quilt, which will then be stitched in to and quilted. This will give the illusion of patchwork, but will reduse labour time and update the whole concept. This image shows an initial experiment. It does need a lot of work and I want to make it more illustrative...but I like the idea - its different and refreshing - so i'm certainly going to work on this idea!!!!

Quilts in the Wilderness!!!

I've been trying to update my portfolio and I've been putting images of my quilts in, but they look so boring!!! The images I've been using are just pictures of the quilts flat, face on...which admittedly shows the colours and surface pattern up well, but just as a photograph it doesnt sell my work. So I've been thinking about taking photographs of the quilts out of context. This was my first 'photo shoot', so I do need to progress with this a lot, but I took the quilts off to a local park and hung them over trees and benches, etc. I think these make for much more interesting portfolio images.

New Illustration Print

I've been working on this illustration for some time now, with the aim of using it to print on to fabric for use in patchwork. This is my final version, which was hand-drawn and digitally enhanced. I intend to print this as a repeat pattern on to fabric using the digital printers.

New Surface Design

It's been a while since i've posted, I've been overly busy with far too much of everything! Anyway, here's a new surface design that I've done featuring fabric patches. It's to go with my patchwork sketchbook, and thought it looked quite nice to make a fabric print from - hopefully using digitally fabric printing methods.

New Quilts

These are two of my new sample quilts, looking at the log-cabin patchwork technique again with an arrangement of crosses. And a simple hexagonal patchwork. Both quilts featre my own fabric that has been printed with my illustrations, and combined with vintage fabric that I randomly came across one time.

New designs - Tea Time!

So I've been thinking about themes for the quilts that I want to make for my MA project. I've previously been working on the theme of 'Great British', so would like to stick with this. I've been thinking about creating quilts that celebrate Great Britian; its heritage, landmarks, customs, etc. I feel we all need to become patriotic again in this country, and its so great seeing all these England flags around for the world cup, so lets have a bit more of that I say. Anyway, back to the point...I've been working on some designs based around these ideas, and the first quilt that I'm going to attempt to make (hopefully will get round to it in the Summer holidays) is going to be based on the British custom of taking tea - we brits love our tea! It's an old favourite of mine, and its very on-trend with many fabric and paper prints currently, so this will help when it comes to selling my work. Here I've designed a coat of arms, which pokes fun at the British love for tea, having the lion and unicorn holding a tea-cup and tea-pot. This will be a central design that I will print and then quilt in to. The other design depicts tea-time, with illustrations of cakes, tea-cups and tea-pots. This will be printed and cut in to panels or strips to make up patchwork around the central coat of arms image. This will possibly be combined with fabric taken from second-hand table cloths.