The American Flag on Spoonflower Kona cotton.

American Flag

My grandson Luke drew this picture of an American flag one day while he was at our house.  I had the design printed on the Spoonflower Kona cotton.  Luke used crayon and pencil to do his drawing. I thought he did a pretty good job.  One of the things I like about Spoonflower is that children's artwork can be reproduced in this way. 

This design can be found at anniedeb's shop on Spoonflower

#SpoonChallenge #7: Book

I know, I know.  So where is the book?  Well, books are made up of words and I am in love with words so I thought I'd do a doodle of how the name "Summersgaze" came to be.  I get this calendar every year called "Forgotten Words" and about 10 years ago, one of the words, I think, was "summersgaze."  I say I think because I can't locate any references to it now.  But I do remember how it had something to do with how the word "gossamer" came to be.  In late summer, geese molt and feathers float all about.  (We had geese so I can attest to the floating feathers.)  Somehow the floating feathers and the gossamer that floats about in the sky in early autumn -- those two things became associated.  I know that this makes absolutely no sense but that is how I came up with "Summersgaze."  And I really wish I could find that calendar entry -- I tore it out and put it someplace safe because I thought it was such a beautiful word, "summersgaze."

And this is apropos of nothing but the other day the comic strip "Shoe" had a pretty phrase: "sustained darkness with scattered stars." 

Designing your own font

I was doing my usual "lurking" in the Spoonflower-Flickr Fabric Design discussion group.  I always learn something new.  Spoonflower has an upcoming contest which involves designing a calendar for 2013.  Fonts came into discussion.  I knew someone designed those fonts that are available in the different software programs that we use on our computers.  I was not aware, though, that those fonts are copyrighted.  So in designs that involve text, designers walk a fine line regarding copyright infringement.  What to do?

Design your own font.  I "Googled" designing your own font and found this web site:

http://www.yourfonts.com/

It's a fairly simple process.  You print off a template provided by the web site, then carefully fill in each block with the appropriate letters and numbers, using a black felt tip pen.  Once done, scan the completed template at 300 dpi and upload it to the web site.  In a few minutes, a sample of your font will appear.

Your own personal font costs around $9.95.  But it's worth peace of mind.  You know that all of your designs which contain text will have your very own font.

Just thought I'd share. I'm going to practice some more on this font designing.

Update on 9/25/2012:  Part of this very post appeared in my font, Summersgaze 2, last night when I posted this entry. I'm not sure what happened and I won't question the powers that be, but the font will work and stay on documents and artwork created on your computer.

Fabric and some designers on Spoonflower

When I was small,  there was a department store, JC Penneys, located in the old Capitol Hill section of Oklahoma City. In late July my mother and I would drive there, walk down the stairs, and, in the basement of the store, were beautiful bolts of fabric.  Late July meant school would be starting in about a month and we were there to pick out fabric for my school dresses.  I could take a long, long time . . . probably what seemed like forever to my mother . . . deciding on what designs I wanted.  More importantly, though, was how did the fabric feel?  

When I found Spoonflower, I ordered one of the sample swatches books.  Lovely textures, especially the organic cotton sateen and the organic cotton interlock knit.   If you are involved with fabric, you are a tactile person too.  I used to do handmade papermaking, but making handmade paper is physically intense and the energy to do it has faded.  I still have quite a stash of handmade paper, though, and I enjoyed the years that I did it, taking workshops and sharing my craft.

There are so many imaginative, creative, talented people currently contributing to Spoonflower.  When I look at the designs, I feel like I can see a tiny bit of how that designer looks at things.  That is what art is, isn't it?  A manifestation of what is inside a person coming out.  It's a brave thing to do -- to create and let other people seen what one has created.

Here are some fabrics I have purchased recently from designers on Spoonflower:

I'm currently working on a pillow using designer Su_G's fabric design Manly Lines of Chalk. 

From left to right, back row: My Garden by Nekanen; Johnny Bump Ups by Beebumble; 18th Century Karakuri Tea
Serving Doll by Zandloopster.  Front row, left to right: Pick Me! by whimzwhirled and FlowerJournal II by weavingmajor. 

These images were taken out in my little house, Summersgaze, where there is only natural light, and a morning light at a northern angle at that.   I did not use a flash.  The colors are much more intense to the naked eye.  Maybe I should have used a flash, but I've provided links to all the fabric designs so they can be viewed in detail.

Summersgaze in Summer 2012

Who was the person who first uttered, "Life is what happens when you are making other plans."  (Was it Paul McCartney?  Not sure.)  In between life, this is what has been going on at Summersgaze.

First, my husband and I have been in the process of repainting the tiny house.  The poor wood is so thirsty, it drinks up the paint -- pumpkin -- so it's taking more paint than we had originally planned.  Still, it is coming along.  We got the three major walls finished yesterday, with just a few touch ups remaining.  Here are some pics:

Saturday 1:  Out of paint.  The east side is done, but we still needed to finish this south side, then begin on the north.
These tiny houses are great for experimenting -- my husband wanted to try his hand at installing
solar panels.  It worked!

Saturday 2:  Out of paint again.  At least all three major sides are completed save for touching up.
The porch will be the next focus.  Since I want the porch to set everything else off, I'm still thinking
about colors.  But I do know the door will be a shade of turquoise!

8 x 8 Test Swatches from Spoonflower

If you create with Spoonflower, you eventually collect a load of 8 x 8 test swatches of fabric designs.  An 8x8 test swatch of any design uploaded to Spoonflower must be ordered so that the designer can actually hold the swatch in his or her hands and decide if that design is what was desired, i.e., does it look okay on fabric, not just on a computer screen.

What to do with the 8x8 test swatches?  I found a pattern in "Simply Sublime Bags" by Jodi Kahn.  She calls her purse design the Barney Bag.  She used place mats to make her bag.  I sewed 4 8x8 test swatches together to get the desired size of the bag, then I ordered two bamboo purse handles from Etsy.  After the test swatches were sewn together, I ironed on  fusable interfacing to stiffen the Kona cotton -- I wanted it flexible, but sturdy.  For the lining of the bag, I used a square cotton napkin.

My Collage Collection can be seen at my shop Summersgaze on Spoonflower.

Here's a picture of my Barney Bag:

My version of the Barney Bag.

When Dinosaurs Invented Flowers

One of the best things about being a parent is that one gets to revisit childhood through our children.  It's really a gift to get to be a parent and an even bigger gift to be a grandparent.  When my son was small, dinosaurs were a big part of his life.  In the 1980s and early 1990s, the dinosaurs experienced a resurgence in popularity.  A museum sponsored a contest for artwork depicting or inspired by dinosaurs.  There was a category for adults so I thought I'd try my hand.  Above is a crop of my larger piece, "When Dinosaurs Invented Flowers."  The piece is created from handmade paper made from cotton linter.

The fabric design I created from this part of my artwork can be seen on Spoonflower and is available for sale through my shop, Summersgaze on Spoonflower.

Kaleidoscope

Do you remember, as a child, playing with a kaleidoscope?  I loved those tubes of wonder.  Just by moving the tube around, different designs could be made with colored rocks.  In my adult years, I have continued to purchase kaleidoscopes.  I even have one kaleidoscope where the end can be removed and I can insert my own objects to view through the kaleidoscope.

On Sumo Paint, there is a feature that can be used to manipulate digital  photographs into beautiful kaleidoscope designs.

I have a collection on Spoonflower called Kaleidoscope.

One of my designs for sale in my shop on Spoonflower, SUMMERSGAZE, is called "Eye of the Chicken." This design is based on this photograph:

This is a beautiful barred rock hen.  One day she came up close to the house and I snapped this picture.  I uploaded this picture to Sumo Paint, chose the Kaleidoscope feature until I saw a pattern I liked.  I centered the Kailedoscope feature over the hen's eye.  The resulting design, with the red and black center of the hen's eye and her black and white feathers, turned out well.  

Regrets . . . I've had a few.

One thing I've learned since trying my hand at designing my own fabric is that what looks good on the computer might not look good on fabric.  My main problem has been that, sometimes, the image I upload has been too large, thus affecting the design.  The optimal pixels for a design  on Spoonflower is 150 pixels.

Yesterday, as I went through my Kaleidoscope collection, trying to decide which designs I wanted to put on the Spoonflower Marketplace, I noticed that some of the designs were rather large.  I logged onto Spoonflower and checked the sizes of the images that I didn't think look very good.  I created a new collection called "Regrets . . . I've Had a Few" and spent the afternoon cropping my images down and reworking them so that they would look better as fabric designs.  When I've completed that task, I'll order a sampling of my "Regrets . . . I've Had a Few" collection to see if the design swatches measure up to what I am seeing on the computer screen.

These are the designs that did pass my inspection and that are now shown on the Spoonflower Marketplace:

Kaleidoscope Collection at Summersgaze on Spoonflower

The first photograph is of wildflowers in our front yard.  The second picture is a design I created from that image using on line photo editing tools.