Ready, Set, Sew: Race Day Tank Top

I have to admit that I'm not always the most enthusiastic runner. My motivation has a lot more to do with the clothes than the many other benefits of running. So I decided, after my first tank top turned out pretty well, I needed to try out Spoonflower's Performance Pique fabric to make a running tank for the Pikes Peek 10K race this past weekend.

I again used an existing tank top (with a racer back) as the pattern, which worked out pretty well, but I tried another method for the binding and ended up with straps that were slightly different sizes (oops!). I also wish I had made it a little bit longer, but overall it fit pretty well.

I really loved the fabric. It was light and surprisingly great quality. I think it will hold up really well over time. I picked my Block Print Blossom pattern in Hydrangea for the task. 

Here's a pic at the finish line! I'm always the happiest when its all over. Photobombed by the Geico Gecko of course. 

It was really cold at the start so I wore my jacket through the first few miles, but was delighted when the sun came out! Good thing I remembered my sunscreen ;o)

Anyways, after all my crazy fabric design projects of late, I decided to try something a little different. Here's a sneak peek... more to come!

Feeling Just Fine & Dandelion

Hooray! Today I finally got the swatches from my Fine & Dandelion patterns from Spoonflower! You can see the whole collection here. I was so excited I made this little movie on Instagram:

A video posted by Liz Weaver (@snarkybeagle) on Apr 16, 2015 at 6:28pm PDT

This was definitely a labor of love as I put in a lot of post-full-day-of-real-work hours in to it. Here's what the primary pattern (that I shared first on Instagram two weeks ago) looks like close up...

I really like the natural/linen-looking background color and the detail in the flowers. If you are so inclined, I entered it in to the final Creative Bug Fabric Design Challenge and I would greatly appreciate your vote (no login is necessary)! Here's the other main pattern I made...

As you can tell by the grass in our backyard, the collection was inspired by all the weeds that are coming back in full force now that it is finally Spring! Pretty soon there will be clover and bumblebees all over the place (and I'm totally ok with that!)

Here are all the swatches together. I just want to say thank you again for everyone's encouragement during this process. I know it may not seem like a huge deal but this has been a fun/exhausting creative outlet, and I want to hug every single person who has shown even the tiniest bit of enthusiasm or interest. You guys are the BEST!

Tank Top Sewing and a Fine & Dandelion Sneak Peak!

Well, it's been a really exciting week! I made my first sale on Spoonflower (woohoo, $1.35! lol) and I was picked for Creative Bug's Instagram Challenge for their Fabric Design class. More on that in a minute, but first, I recently embarked on learning to sew with knit fabrics.

It actually wasn't as hard as I expected. I don't have a serger, so the seams weren't as pretty as they could be. I also made the mistake of not paying attention to the length vs. width (which really matters with knits). Luckily Spoonflower's Modern Jersey is VERY stretchy in both directions so it still fits well. Lesson learned!

I made the pattern myself (also a first!) from a Banana Republic tank top. I used this tutorial from Anna at Noodlehead as a guide as well as Creative Bug's Sewing a T-Shirt class.

Here's the design/fabric before I cut it. The design was featured this week on Spoonflower's "Hot Trends" this week and can be purchased here in fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap!

As I mentioned earlier, I've added Creative Bug's Fabric Design class to my ever growing list of online class credentials. And I was thrilled to win their Instagram challenge this past week! The feedback from folks was an AMAZING confidence booster. I seriously want to hug every person who liked or commented on the post. Here was my submission:

I've spent the last few days furiously finishing the pattern I posted and creating a whole collection around it to share on Spoonflower. I just got everything uploaded today and ordered the swatches. Here's a sneak peak of a few of the other designs and coordinates. I hope you are as excited as I am!

Hello Spring Wallpaper

Whenever my birthday comes around I know that Spring is soooo close. I can taste it. Last weekend was 60 degrees (it's 14 degrees right now but whatever).

Spring is by far my most productive time so I kicked it off with making myself some sweet new desktop wallpapers from some recent hand lettering doodles. 

 (download "Bonjour" here)

 (download "Howdy" here)

(download "Hey" here)

Right now I have all three rotating on my desk every 15 minutes. It's pretty much like a fun-Spring-wake-me-up-from-Winter-kick-in-the-pants thing. Anyways, feel free to download and enjoy if you are also feeling Spring-tastic!

In other news, I FINALLY installed the Adobe Creative Suite I've has packed away for 2.5 years which I bought at the end of grad school with my student discount. It has Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. I have a pretty good working knowledge of Photoshop (I've been using PSE for a few years), but am thinking about signing up for a membership for lynda.com to learn the other two. Anyone else have experience with it? Any other recommendations for learning?

Yay Spring!

V-V-Vroooooom

Today I was promised 70 degrees... its was a lie. I mean, I can't complain too much because it was up in the 50s but I had really been hoping for some warmth. It felt like this.

Anyways, the rainy/misty morning did give me an opportunity to do some doodling. Instead of Sharpies I used my Staedler skinnies. They bleed a little less and give a nice sharp line. My name is Liz and I'm a fan and a marker/pen addict.

Run! Succulent Fever Outbreak!

As I've been perusing the wild and sometimes overwhelming world of wedding blogs, one trend that I've really loved (but really doesn't fit our farm-y wedding) is the use of succulents. Those weird, kind of chubby little desert plants. Last summer I saw a bunch at the National Botanic Garden and they were pretty amazing inspiration.

Then this week, it's like I contracted succulent fever (possibly contagious) when I saw this store on Etsy. I immediately scooped up the little guy above and named him Elvis Kiwi. Yes, I like to name my plants. Not going to lie, part of the appeal is that I don't have to water them often which is good because I have a certified black thumb.

Then I started doodling them. Watch out for the incoming glut of succulent doodles...

There are more but I will spare you. Anyways, I'm hoping to use these as a jumping off point for some more patterns in the near-ish future, ya know, after we finish our 348 wedding projects, oh, and manage to buy the house of my severely altered dreams. More to come on that... eventually. 

Anyone else been bitten by the succulent bug? 

Secret Projects & Monograms

You may remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about a secret project. Well, it was a secret because it was a wedding gift for a friend of mine.

At some point she had expressed an interest in buying some of my artwork, to which I was like... uh how about I just give you some. I haven't done a ton of commission work because I'm always nervous the person won't like it. But since this was a surprise wedding gift, I got really excited about it. I got the idea from the bed linens they registered for.

Marimekko Saarni Sage Bed Linens from Crate & Barrel

I wanted to make it personal so I sketched out a leaf motif similar to the duvet cover with a monogram.

I really wanted to put some of my block printing to work so I carved the leaf and the 'W' to print.

Unfortunately I couldn't really get the right color by mixing the inks AND I forgot to carve the W backwards... so I decided to scan in the prints and do the layout and color digitally.

I honestly am pretty happy with the result so I hope they like it. Their wedding yesterday was beautiful and I was so honored to be invited. Congrats to the newlyweds!

Asparagus or Bow Ties?

One of the greatest things about designing abstract patterns is listening to what people think they look like.  I always have my own opinion which you can usually see from whatever I named the file on Flickr, but I've heard some pretty weird ones too.

Do you see bow ties or asparagus bundles? 

What about now? Fun fact. I came up with the shape when I was trying to draw a pleated skirt. Unrelated, I'm in the midst of reading this textbook about surface design I bought and learning lots about the business and what it actually takes to do it. I'm such a glutton for punishment... I spend my free time (when I'm not writing my grad school thesis or doing my real life work) reading textbooks :oP

Webbed Feet & Pumpkins

As I mentioned yesterday, we decided to take this lovely weekend to go pick some pumpkins. Kevin and I are pretty particular about our pumpkins so he covered a lot of ground before picking his. I spent more time playing with Instagram and taking some pretty photos.

Which reminded me of this picture of seagull tracks I took at the beach a few weeks ago. The shape of the tracks and the texture of the sand was really inspiring. Most of my patterns recently have started with a particular shape so this was a good jumping off point for me.

I kept running with the same color theme from yesterday. 

So between the successful pumpkin patch picking and some fun graphic prints, it was a pretty great weekend. How was yours?

Hyper Links

Hey Internet. It's been a busy week for the beginning of October. Today we went pumpkin picking (more to come on that tomorrow) and I spent the afternoon baking an apple pie while watching the poor poor Florida Gators play LSU.

But in between all that, I managed to work out a new pattern that I really like. I wasn't sure (as usual) how it was going to come out because it was a little extra complicated. To get all the little links in each area all linked up I had to keep messing around with it.

The result was well worth the effort though. I love that the more I practice this the more I love each pattern. I think I'm definitely improving which is a huge confidence builder.

It's All Part of a Plan

Here's something I made yesterday that's the start of the "big plan" I've been thinking about over the last few months.

So I'm thinking a lot about the "what to sell" question and if I want to sell prints I should probably make something that has a more central image. Here's what I came up with that builds on the above pattern:

Lastly, I tried to eek out another quick matching pattern. (I got sleepy though and had to set it aside for a while so I'm not in love with it.)

So all this is a demonstration of something I think I want to try and that's creating art prints and coordinating fabrics. I figure I can sell the prints on Etsy and link to the coordinating fabrics on Spoonflower. 

At very minimum, creating a few fabric collections on Spoonflower I think would be a good start. The commission is only 10 percent, but it's a start, right? So yeah, it's something thats going to take a few weeks, but I'm excited about it. 

Loop Dee Loops

Ok, I'm getting ready to take off for the weekend to the super fun Dogfish Dash in my super cool Battery Brewing t-shirt. But last night as I was procrastinating on paper, I adapted another part of my secret project into another pattern. This one kind of blows my mind (if I'm allowed to say that...)


This was actually taken from a large script, block print "W." I just cropped the loop and started messing around with it.


I love how the blue reads differently on the light green vs. the dark green. Anyways, hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be back Monday with those fun Team Battery Brewing pics :o)

Leaf It to Me

Sorry, I'm all about the corny-ness today. It's been quite a day though. It started with an effing HUGE spider on my side mirror on my way to my client meeting. It was huge. I was afraid for my life... really. Here's a pattern that's very relaxing and not scary like spiders at all.

This was a bonus design as I was working on my top secret block print I mentioned yesterday. Clearly one of the design elements is a leaf and it's kind of that color green (but I photoshopped this color). I'm really digging these block prints turned patterns. The texture is just so fun. I know I always ask, but thoughts? Love it, hate it?

Change Up

Sometimes I really like a pattern I make. Sometimes I just need to think about it. I liked how this flower pattern turned out when I first did it but now that I've been thinking about it, I've been wanting to change up the colors and simplify it. Here's what I ended up with...

Kinda light and fun. Can we be real for a minute Internet? I just wanted to do a pattern because I've been pretty exhausted this week. This was kind of a side project from our other side projects.

I'm working on one thing that I am PSYCHED about but I can't tell you about it because it's a gift/surprise for someone and I don't want to ruin it. But soon! I'll give you a hint... it's another block print. Anyways, I have a client meeting tomorrow morning for my grad school capstone project so it's off to bed for me.

Recycle Part Two

Ok, am I crazy that I'm spending my Labor Day weekend working on patterns, drawings and blog posts instead of relaxing? The bad news is that I'm really procrastinating (already) from working on my grad school capstone project. Uuugghhg.

So here's part two. This was a pretty easy update from the original. I can use this as a tile to make a larger pattern, but I kind just like the one block. What do you think?

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

One of my to-do items is to take some of my old designs and turn them into digital patterns. We'll call this "creativity recycling." But, easier said than done.

Let's just say most of my black and white originals took hours or days or weeks to finish, while most of the patterns I've done recently have taken about an hour.

This is probably because most of the originals were drawn pre-grad school when I actually had hours/days/weeks just to draw (while watching chick flicks of course). I chose this design to try out first because it was easiest to replicate on a tablet.

Here's the result. I need to work on the seams (the lines between the repeatable tiles) to make them less visible. I took the colors from this photo of a succulent at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Aren't the colors so nice and cool? Definitely more Spring than Autumn... but whatever :oP

An Earthquake and Some Dots

Today we had an earthquake at work. It was pretty insane when the whole room started shaking and swaying. That wobbliness sort of inspired this dot pattern. I also really wanted to do a dot :o)

I'm pretty much in love with it. Definitely my favorite pattern so far! Here it is in some other fun colors. Still trying to find a better yellow but still cool.

Did you feel the earthquake? Did it make you want to draw teal polka dots? I'm guessing probably not but the earthquake was pretty unbelievable so at this point maybe anything is possible!

Orchid You Glad?

Here's the next in my series of botanic garden-inspired prints. The orchids at the U.S. Botanic Gardens are amazing. The different colors and patterns are almost shocking. This was my favorite one (mainly because I'm a little obsessed with pink... talk about shocking, I know).

This is the first stripe I've made so I was unsure about the process but really it was pretty much the same deal. Maybe I'll use this pattern from my DIY Keds that I've been craving? I'm getting ready to order some fat quarters of fabric from Spoonflower to mess with as well. 

I used Kuler again to pull the colors from my photo. You can download them here. Which do you like better the all-green or the green and pink? Should I try something else? As always, try click on them to see the big version and try it out on your desktop! It's a fun, end-of-summer color splash.