New Spoonflower Fabric designs!

Last week I received swatches for my new designs, which means there are now 15 new fabric designs available to buy from my Spoonflower shop!!  That almost doubles the number of designs I had on offer before.

A whole new collection I have added has a Steampunk theme and includes patterns made from my Hexley illustrations.  There is a Clockwork Bird pattern (with a robin, kingfisher, nuthatch and barn owl), an Aeronautical design, Nautical pattern, cogs, and a coordinating spots pattern.  My favourite design in this range probably has to be the keys, clock hands and cogs.

I created this collection after being approached by a customer who had liked the illustrations in my Etsy shop.  It’s really nice to be able to create designs based on customers suggestions and it often leads me to me creating designs I wouldn't have made otherwise.  So if there’s something you would like me to design for you please let me know!

As I needed to order swatches of the Steampunk designs before I could add them to my shop I thought I would create some other new designs and order all the swatches together.  So I have also added 2 new designs to coordinate with the Budgie range. I really like how the chevron pattern turned out as it’s quite different to any other patterns I have made…

This fish pattern started as the fish line drawing I made for the Steampunk Nautical set and I played around with colour to make something a bit bolder than a lot of my other designs…There are also 4 new floral patterns, inspired by vintage fabrics and sketches of flowers from my garden.  I tried out a few different colour schemes for these and will probably add some different versions to my shop in the future.

Finally, I created two patterns from my illustrations of rabbits.  These are so cute – I think they would be perfect for stitching things for nurseries!  Often I finish a project and spot all the things I would change, having spent too long looking at a piece of work.  So it's nice to be satisfied with these designs!

For those of you not familiar with Spoonflower, it’s really simple to order fabric – choose from an 8” square swatch, fat quarter or by the yard.  If you visit my shop you will find that you can buy these designs printed on 12 different fabrics, from basic combed cotton to heavy cotton twill.  You can also buy these designs as rolls of wallpaper.  Spoonflower is based in the USA, so if you order from any other country don't forget you might have to pay customs fees.  (In the UK you have to pay import VAT on goods over £15, if you're ordering small quantities you probably won't have to pay anything.)  So far I've been lucky and haven't had to pay any customs fees!

Mollie Makes kit – rose cross-stitch hoop

Here's my latest (finished) craft project; a pretty cross stitched rose made with the kit which came with issue 30 of Mollie Makes.  It was designed by Eline Pellinkhof, a designer, illustrator and crafter - she has lots of cute designs for paper crafts too!

I've never used ribbons or other embellishments on cross stitch projects I've made before, but really liked this spotty ribbon and lace with the rose.  I'll definitely be wanting to add ribbon to my next cross stitch project!

I decided to keep the hoop plain wood, instead of wrapping in fabric strips like the magazine suggested.  I also stitched a circle of felt to the back...

I've already started making the kit which came with this month's magazine (which was only out this week) - unbelievably fast for me!  I'll share pictures of that when it's finished :)

May flowers – free printable calendar

Every month I think how quickly time is passing, it can’t be time for another calendar!  This month’s design is inspired by May flowers, it’s also a sneak peek at a new pattern design which I’ll be sharing more of very soon (just waiting for some swatches to arrive in the post!).

You can download the PDF here and you can view and print the calendar with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
The calendar is A4 in size, but you can scale it to fit different sized paper if you prefer.  You can print onto any type of paper you like, for best results I recommend using your printer's highest quality setting and a good quality paper.
Please note this calendar is for personal use only!  You can print it as many times as you like for your own use but you may not redistribute it in any form (digitally or printed).  You may not modify the calendar or claim it as your own.  If you would like to share the calendar on your blog, Pinterest, facebook etc please include a link back to this page (not the download link).  Thank you!  I hope you enjoy using it :)