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!

It's Almost Here! Spring Block Print Patterns

Despite getting about seven inches of snow this past week, today's 50+ degree temperatures are making me feel like I can finally be hopeful that winter is almost over! Woohoo! In light of this general elation, I'm excited to share these new patterns:

 I really enjoyed the tactile experience of block printing the past few weeks (and sewing some sweet projects)... but I was ready for some instant gratification. So I scanned my favorite flower block prints and created some new repeating patterns in my favorite Spring, flower-inspired colors!

This isn't the first time I've digitized block prints, but I think we all can agree... I've come a long way baby! I love progress :)

Anyways, fingers crossed I won't be back here next week posting more snow pics on Instagram... that is unless they are like this amazing beagle snow video... We'll see!

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.

Happy September!

I'm trying to be happy that it's September, but really, I'm devastated. Summer is my favorite season by far because there's no way you can confuse it with my least favorite season... Winter. I'm a Florida girl at heart and I need my 100 degrees and 99 percent humidity days!

So along those lines I made this orang-ey fall-ish print to get pumped up. The inspiration actually came from this photo I found on  Design*Sponge.

Source: designsponge.com

Another reason I'm getting pumped up is that later this month I'm starting "The Declaration of You" with Michelle Ward and Jessica Swift. Wooo! I'm really excited about it because I'm hoping it will help me sort out some of this stuff I've been thinking about for a whiiilllee.

I've been trying to figure out what to do about sharing/selling my doodles and artwork and the level of committment I want to put into it. It's complicated and I have full confidence these wonderful ladies will help guide me through so of my questions. Stay tuned for updates!

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!

What's The Swirl?

This design is roughly three or four years old. I found the .jpg on my hard drive and I have no clue where the original is (Mom's house?) I should find it and get a better scan. I'm thinking about re-scanning all my designs soon so that I can make them available online to buy as prints on RedBubble or CafePress or something. As much as I'd like to make originals for everyone who asks me (mainly family members named Andrew), I think this may be a better alternative for my current... uh, somewhat busy schedule... if you can call baking and laying around with the Snarky Beagle 'busy.'