On this journey, I have followed a ton of surface pattern designers, taken a bunch of free courses, watched a million YouTube videos, and worked on manifesting my dream.  It has been a fantastic learning curve and I have really been challenged.  As usual, I don’t want to do things the way most people do, and I want it to look soft and natural with the texture of the leaves and the beautiful background of the fabric in the design.  I have been very motivated to figure out how to get the results I want.    

The original core fabrics of this collection were created in the beautiful studio at Artisan Woodworking & Design Gallery. This big vision warehouse/woodworking shop kind of space had enormous and colorfully paned windows that brought in the natural light and great vibes.  Each day I would mordant a big batch of cotton fabric in Aluminum Acetate for the next day of production and haul in miscellaneous branches and leaves to the studio. 

Most all these leaves were gathered from around my neighborhood where they are plentiful and abundant.  I found that my favorite leaves for printing this time of year were Grapevine, Oak, Blackberry, and some Lemon Eucalyptus I had harvested from my garden last year.  I was amazed by the print from the curls of the Grapevine and the pretty dotted lines from the Blackberry leaves.  I loved using the enormous tables where I could spread out my treasures and get lost in the creation process.   

I wanted to experiment with some tannins that I had never used before and it was very interesting to see the differences in the color of the fabrics when using Logwood, Madder and Sandalwood as my tannin bath.  The final bundle was processed in an iron dye bath which enhances the fabric with beautiful black, brown, and purple hints.     

After working on learning surface pattern design for two years I feel like I am finally getting my head around it.  I have come full circle to the point that I have always had what I needed to get where I wanted to go, but just didn't know it then.  Does that make sense?  I have been trying to learn repeat pattern design and cut out the images from my scans when all along it might be the best thing to just put them out there as a whole piece.  Who knows, but I’m going to try it.  Stay tuned. 

Now I am quite content ironing and photographing these pieces and noticing treasures in each one of them.  I quite enjoy that there’s very little color and love the flowing textures created in the dye bath.  Each piece will be photographed and turned into a digital file for printing and will be available for sale through Spoonflower, my website and via my Etsy shop.

If you are part of my online community, I will be sharing info on pre-launch shopping opportunities and information on how to be the first to view this collection. If you are not, please sign up to be on my VIP email list for more info, see more on Instagram and Facebook   Thank you so much for following me on my art journey.  I appreciate you! 

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