My Stars and Stripes submission to Spoonflower

I entered another design contest at Spoonflower this last Tuesday - the project was to "Create a fabric design using stars and stripes as design motifs." I planned on using the design motifs above, (which I posted on Facebook - it helps me commit to entering the competition if I dedicate to do it in a Facebook post!! - a self imposed deadline I suppose :) ) to create an homage to the Star Spangled Banner in honour of that most American of holidays July 4th Independence Day! The repeat size is only 8 x 8 inches so that was somewhat restricting but still it's always fun to have parameters to work with - makes you more creative - sometimes! I did instantly have an Americana/quilt concept rolling around in the old brain and off I went to the drawing board.

I started with motifs I already had painted in watercolour on paper and were previously scanned  into the computer and cleaned up in Photoshop. They were: a red gingham, a blue gingham, a decorative star and a red plaid - it was nice to have everything at hand ready to play with that 8" square. When I first started doing the design I tried a non-symmetrical layout but whatever you do at an 8 inch repeat turns out to look very symmetrical when joined up with its self into an allover repeat. I also played with a traditional Rolling Star motif - but I didn't think they played well with the other motifs:

Then I started to make some stripes out of the ginghams and a star from a red wash I had done for another project:

I ended up with the central motif you see above here - the decorative star surrounded by checked stripes. That became the dominate motif of the finished layout:

Here are four of the above tiles made into the allover pattern: American Folkloric - the design I have entered into this weeks Spoonflower competition

A

Here are three trial repeats with the same allover feel but with a couple of different motifs and a slightly different look - isn't it amazing how distinct each repeat looks?

B

C

D

 What do you think of the different designs?

I've also made the design into a pattern for a melamine plate at my new Zazzle shop - I love the idea of designing for the melamine plates - I have been hoping for a long time that someone would start doing them as print on demand and last week I discovered that Zazzle does them - my only disappointment is I think they are over priced, I do hope they consider bringing the price down in the future - by quite a lot!! Although I can custom design plates for anyone who wants such and then you could have a lovely special plate for a classy picnic or birthday party - just drop me a line if you are interested in that new service from yours truly!!

I'm also excited about the Zazzle shop as they have different products to my CafePress shop - they have iPad 3 skins, MacAir Book sleeves, envelopes and postage stamps, pillows and kitchen cotton items which supprot a company that employs single Mums - and oh so much more - I'll be rolling the new items out in the next few weeks - stay tuned!!

PLEASE VOTE FOR MY AMERICANA FOLKLORIC DESIGN HERE - AND MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR DOING SO! I cannot tell you which page my design will be on as the images are shuffled for each and every voter and you do have to go through all 21 pages to get to place your vote but it goes pretty sharpish - thanks!!!

 I am working on a delicious and really easy recipe for July 4th - it should be up in the next couple of days - 'til then have fun and enjoy the weekend!!