greenolive

and the lucky winners are...

yes, winners, plural

The My Bike design from the Kids Range – printed white on royal blue linen.

Yes, you read that right. Winners. Plural.

I was so chuffed by the volume of comments that I decided to choose more than one winner. In fact three winners.

And the winners are:

French Knots gets two not-quite-fat quarters from the Kids Range 

Anna gets a bits and pieces pack (remnants) from the Kids Range

Sue gets one not-quite-fat quarter from the Kids Range.

The Flutterby design from the Kids Range – printed white on hot pink linen.

I'm not sure if I told you the story behind this range...both designs are taken from original illustrations that I drew when I was 4 and three-quarters years old. My clever mum kept the drawings and now I have them. 

Watch out for more designs in the future...

Oh, if you were one of the lucky three, email me (see link in right side bar) with your details – name and postal address and the greenolive textiles will be on their way. Promise to send me a photo of what you made.

PS: If you weren't one of the three winners, don't forget that you can buy greenolive not-quite-fat quarters at my stand in the Incubator at the Stitches and Craft Show, 11 to 15 March. I wouldn't dawdle if I were you, we just might sell out. (We hope!)

thank you & an SOS

The "Urban Type" design, all ready to be printed this weekend.

I was completely overwhelmed by all your comments and suggestions about what you would make from a greenolive textiles not-quite-fat quarter.

It was great to see some familiar faces and lots of new faces courtesy of the blog post from CurlyPops.

There are lots of great ideas – things I hadn't thought of – and feedback on the designs and the range was very positive. So thank you all very much. And, I hope some of you who visited my blog for the first time might come back every now and then.

Since you all liked the kids range so much, I thought I should tell you that both the Flutterby and My Bike designs will be printed on colours other than white. Here's a sneak peek at the other 100% linen basecloths we'll be printing on. I can't wait to show you photos on the final prints!

100% linen in white, hot pink, red, baby blue and big boy blue – all the colours in the Kids Range.

Oh, a winner. I haven't forgotten. I've decided to choose three winners, and will do this over the weekend. So make sure you pop back on Monday to see if you were lucky. I hope you are!

I'm sure you are wondering about the photo at the start of this post...well its the finished "Urban Type" design, exposed onto a screen and ready to print. It was the first design I did for greenolive textiles and I think it's my favourite. I have a real thing for typography, especially the old wooden type blocks that were used for printing many years ago. We'll be printing "Urban Type" this weekend in red, grey, black and silver inks on a range of basecloths. Yummy!!

An SOS

Angela from the Stitches & Craft Show emailed yesterday with an SOS. I'm hoping some of you might be able to help her out. 

She needs volunteers for the Craft Bar, a brand new development at this year's show. Her volunteers have unvolunteered themselves leaving her with a craft bar with no crafters!

The Craft Bar is a fun, free place where crafters can go and have fun with papercraft, sewing, knitting or embroidery. There are several crafty dishes on the menu, all you have to do is chose one. 

The volunteers (that's you) will be at the Craft Bar showing people how to do so some of the stitching projects.

As a volunteer, here's what's involved:

• working at the show for free, each day from 8.30am to 5pm

• free entry to the show

• lots of fun, the chance to meet people and share your passion for crafting

• small perks (not sure what this entails, but its sure to be great!)

So if you are crafty, have free time during the days the Show is on, and you would like to help out, contact Angela: angela.gualtieri[at]livingcreatively.com.au 

I sure hope you can, the craft bars sound like a great idea – I might even pop in to learn how to embroider – that's one of the few crafty bugs that hasn't bitten me yet.

calling all sewers

what would you make from your greenolive not-quite-fat quarter?

A close up of the Flutterby design from the Kids range, printed in red on 100% white linen.

If you were lucky enough to get your hands on a greenolive textiles not-quite-fat quarter, what would you make?

I say not-quite-fat quarter because these original hand-printed designs measure 35 x 45 cm, a smidge less than a traditional fat quarter (35 x45 cm = 13.7 x 17.7 inches for those of you who aren't metric).

I'm thinking softies, tote bags, cushions, small quilts, notebook covers, zippered purses...

A close up of the My bike design from the Kids range, printed in blue on 100% white linen.

What would you make?

Leave a comment with your suggestions and you'll go into the draw to win a greenolive textiles not-quite-fat quarter of your very own so you can make whatever you want.

PS: if you want to get your hands onto some of this fabric from the Kids Range or fabric from the other two ranges, come and visit me at the Stitches & Craft Show, in Melbourne, 11 to 15 March. If you aren't a local, I'll also be selling online (probably via madeit.com or my website.)

a little help from my friends

also known as market research!

I took my "mood boards" - a bit of a descriptive stretch, but let's call them mood boards shall we? - to work to get some feedback on the fabric designs I'm launching at the Stitches and Craft Show in mid-March.

We know I love them, but I'm biased aren't I? I wanted to find out what others thought, people who are not so obsessed with design and craft as I am. 

Well I'm very pleased to say that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Ranges good. Designs lovely. The stories behind the designs interesting, endearing even. The colours great - but I'd also like that in dark blue please.

Three yummy mummies, two gen X, one gen Y and a token make - all demographics covered (sorry guys to reduce you to a demographic!)

So I'm feeling more confident about the launch of greenolive textiles. It seems the three ranges (yes, three) cover most tastes and demographics – even the blokes! Each ranges has a theme which carries through the designs, basecloths and colourways. They coordinated, but not in a quilty way, and I think that coordination is something that has been missing from local printed fabrics up to now.

More photos of the fabrics and the behind the scenes printing over the next week or so. I know you are waiting with baited breath!!

we've been busy!

very, very busy!!

One of the test prints we printed over the weekend. This design is from the tribal range – doesn't have a name yet....

Busy is an understatement. In between listening to the bushfire alerts on the local radio, checking the CFA incident website, and actually evacuating twice over the weekend, we managed to squeeze in a spot of screenprinting. About time too – the Stitches and Craft Show is just over three weeks away!

I'm still in design mode – and like a real designer I'm leaving things to the last minute. The designs are still not fully formed, but I have a good feel for the direction I want to go in. 

This one may look familiar to some of you, I showed you an early sketch in this blog post. And I haven't come up with a name – the names are the hardest part!

This inspiration for this range is Out of Africa mets big game hunter on safari. The range is quite strong and graphic, the designs have a primitive, earthy feel. They will be printed in rich brown and black on sand and brown linen. Yep, 100% linen. 

Both designs need some refinement, they feel a bit too big and not quite in proportion at the moment. We are madly tweaking behind the scenes in Illustrator. The original designs were done by hand, but this won't cut it when it comes to doing the screens.

All we've got to do now is refine the designs, order the yummy linen fabric, get the screens exposed, do the printing, sort out the packaging and then we'll be all ready to SELL OUT at the Show. (Finger's crossed!)

So what do you reckon? You like? What about 100% linen – yummy right? And, what about those names?

Give me some feedback, suggest a name, promise to buy them – leave me a comment with all or any of these and go into the draw to win one of each design in the colour of your choice!

PS – lots more pictures of the before, during and after of the screenprinting adventures of the flickr site.

PPS – just in case you are wondering – "we" means mr greenolive and I. We've decided the move into textile design means that he can be more hands-on with greenolive. It's much easier to get him to screenprint that it is to knit, sew or crochet. His official title is production manager. Mine is crazy uptight designer.

flutter-by

only 27 sleeps til the Stitches & Craft show!

I'm quickly running out of time – the days are fluttering by until the Stitches & Craft Show, 11 to 15 March.

I've got a huge to-to list and it looks something like this...

> sort out the fabric designs

> organise the screens

> source the base cloth fabrics

> organise the screenprinting

> design greenolive's corporate identity

> organise printing or business cards, swing tags, packaging

> photograph new designs for website, media kit and general promotion

> redesign the website

> write weekly blog posts about my preparations for the Show

> sort out the stall layout and signage

> decide on stall design, furniture, styling

> finalise pricing: retail and wholesale

> develop two projects sheets for Living Creatively website

> decide if I want to run any workshops

> anything else I have forgotten.

Oh, and don't forget to go to work every day!

Just in case you are wondering, the flutter-by (butterfly) has something to do with a range of kids fabrics I'm working on for the Show...interested?

be there or be square

at the Stitches & Craft Show!

Printed wooden type waiting to become a fabulous screenprinted textile design.

I alluded to it in this post and gave you a sneak peek in this post, but now I can tell you all about it!

Greenolive will be at the Stitches & Craft Show in mid-March! I'm going to be one of the indie crafters and designers in the Incubator.

I'll be in very good company – lots of our favourite crafters and designers will be there – and its going to be so much fun.

You may remember last year when I was part of the Living Creatively stand at the Stitches & Craft Show. There was such a good vibe and the stand looked great. 

The 2009 show will be even better, as Living Creatively has taken over the Show – so image how fabulous it's going to be. You can't miss it. Everyone will be there. And there'll be lots of fantastic crafty and designer loveliness to snap up. Including new greenolive goodies...

Watch this space...

a sneak peek

playing with type

An initial design, not quite right (not enough different letters) but you get the idea.

As a trained graphic designer, type always featured heavily in my work. I'm no longer working as a designer, but the love of typography continues.  I have a collection of old wooden type blocks – all letters and numbers and quite a few other characters. 

Ever since I bought them I have been itching to develop a textile design from them. And here's my first iteration. Each block has been inked up, printed, scanned and manipulated into a design of interlocking characters.

It's not quite right, I have had to duplicate characters because we didn't print all the letters – that's a job for this weekend.

So what do you think? Would you buy it? What colours would you like? And, what do you think I should call it?

At the moment it's called Alphabet Soup!

Let me know what you think.

tribal fabric design

screenprinting take two

The initial sketch for a new screenprint design.

After the less than ideal start to screenprinting, I'm well prepared for take two.

Above is a very rough sketch for a tribal or primitive linework pattern. Just the sort of pattern that appeals to me. You can still see the pencil lines and even the white out tape I used to reduce the weight of the black lines. 

I'm a very low-tech designer. I think it stems for doing my design degree in the years before Apple macs and the domination of software. We had to draw. To cut and paste. To move things around. To use overlays to perfect composition. We had to use our eye, our sense of shape, scale, balance – instead of relying on a photoshop filter or a flip and repeat action.

I still prefer working low-tech. My husband sometimes shakes his head at me as I try and create something in photoshop. He can't believe I worked as a designer for 13 years. For me, pen and paper, or scissors and sticky tape give me a sense of freedom and immediacy. And a direct connection to my work. I know exactly what size 24pt type is, but 100 pixels – what's that?

Anyway, once I was happy with the rough design, I decided that the top right "square" was the best element, so I set about tweaking and repeating it until I had a tiled design that could work on fabric.

This is my low-tech approach to pattern repeat. Photocopy the design element multiple times. Paste it onto a piece of paper in a grid layout. Draw 7cm squares onto your paper stencil. Stick the design and the paper stencil onto a window. Trace the design onto the stencil.

Now all I gotta do is cut this out and print it. Easy!

Oh, and if you are a high-tech girl, or are freaked out by pattern repeats like I was, check out these handy tutorials:

1. Julia's tutorial on creating a repeating pattern

2. Cicada Studio's tutorial on plaids in photoshop

3. Digital Arts tutorial on repeat patterns in Illustrator

4. Daisy Janie's tutorial on how to create a pattern from real life texture.

not quite according to plan

best laid plans and all that...

One of the screenprints that worked.

I had it all planned. Rather, WE had it all planned. A weekend of screenprinting. Just the two of us. A new crafty pastime we could do together.

The screens had been bought. Squeegee too. All 33 cms of it. Ink stocked up on. Fabrics selected from stash. Design inspiration gathered. Design tools (paper, pens, pencils, scissors and sticky tape) readied. Fabrics washed, and at the ready...waiting for screenprinting.

Now all we needed was the designs. That was my part. 

You'd think it'd be easy, me being a designer and all. But no. Call it procrastination, perfectionism or performance anxiety, or maybe even out of practice, but it took until 1.30pm Sunday afternoon before a design had materialised. And 3pm before it had been cut from a paper stencil...

A simple, graphic design with undulating lines, paper stencil cut and ready to print.

Mr greenolive before the printing began. Note the cheeky grin. He soon lost that!

That left very little time for screenprinting. Especially as Mr greenolive was trying to cook the mother of all roasts for our late lunch/early dinner: beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings - you get the picture.

And things did not go according to plan... I'd planned a two colour design using the one stencil. Print the design in colour A, let it dry, and print it again in colour B moving the screen enough to allow the two prints to overlap, effectively creating a third colour.

A peak at the red print that worked. Only the plan was a few more prints...

We'd managed to get five prints of the red design before we moved onto the copper one. (Metallic, nice!). Plonking the screen down on a previous red print, I held the screen and Mr greenolive dragged the squeegee across. 

It was only when we lifted the screen and printed a fresh copper print that I realised we'd made a basic beginner mistake! The red print was not totally dry when we placed the screen back on top. It had transferred the print to the paper stencil. Bugger. Now we had a copper print with the "ghost" image of the red print too. Double bugger.

The paper cut stencil with the ghost of the first red print transferred onto the paper stencil.

The printing was abandoned. Along with the grey and black inks. Accompanied by lots of swear words. 

Lessons learnt:

1. rethink couples craft

2. don't try and screenprint with limited time available (ie, no roast in the oven)

3. make sure the design is sorted well in advance

4. use hairdryer to ensure prints are dry before you try and print over them!

The roast was lovely though! I'll let you know how we get on this weekend.