Category: digital

Happy Friday + Randomness

Happy Friday! What a week – it’s been full throttle fun. Yesterday, we had a gathering of friends with an awesome spread of food to celebrate the Fourth of July. Three long tables filled to the gills with snacks and treats and grilled goodness. The kids careened down slip ‘n’ slides (and a few adults too) and we even had a keg of beer! I chatted with old and new friends, and didn’t snap a whole lot of photos, which is unlike me as I’m usually the unofficial photographer. Around 10pm, we corralled the group and headed down a few blocks to plunk down blankets in the middle of the closed-off street and watched fireworks blasted over the small, local lake.

Normally, K would be super-charged with energy at 10pm, but I think we’re still on Michigan time, because she curled up on my lap and fell promptly asleep while the fireworks kaboomed all around. We were surrounded by throngs of people and yet it felt like we were in our own world: K’s warm body nestled on my knee, the skies bathed in bright showers of effervescent lights. Summer is here.

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K is a big reader and likes to share nuggets of newly acquired knowledge…

K: Mommy, you know what word I’m really into lately?

Me: Hmmm?

K: Doofus.

Me: ……Huh, that’s uh, well…

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Wishing you a beautiful weekend, friends! I have been thoroughly enjoying reading all the comments for the giveaway. So many lovely remembrances of childhood pastimes — books and forts and outdoor play; real and imagined travels, and reenactments of shows (Miami Vice! Love that one)…and here’s my little haiku:

Sizzle Fizzle Pop
Loved ones, food, fireworks too
Summer: feeds the soul

Happy Friday + Randomness

Happy Friday! The winner of the swimwear fabric giveaway is #23 Kate! She provided a delicious-sounding recipe for vegan taco salad. Yum. You should have received an email from me by now Kate, congrats!

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! My actual birthday was super low-key, but lovely. So I’m running around like a madwoman trying to get everything ready for camping, and a multitude of other things are going on so I’m posting my Friday post on Thursday to confuse you all (I was trying to fix a mistake you’ll see in my haiku and ended up making things even more haywire).

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Ever since calling my legs “giant squashes”, K has been loving using interesting analogies to describe me:

K: Mommy, you’re so pretty! Your hair is like night…

Me: Oh thank y…

K: I’m not done! Your eyes are the color of tree trunks…your nose is like a tiny pear…and your teeth are like tofu chunks!!

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When We Were Young post 
went public by my mistake 
I don’t seem to learn

Man, I am the queen of accidentally publishing my posts. If you use Google Reader, don’t read the post yet! It was meant to go live on Sew Pony next week…but just in case you’ve seen it, I will be changing things…Have a wonderful weekend, everyone and hope you get to celebrate all the Dads in your life!!

 

Stilts Illustrations

Sometimes, it feels like I’m walking on stilts. A little wobbly, somewhat uncertain, viewing the world from a not-entirely normal perspective. Thrilling too – good things, I think, are afoot.

These are illustrations I created a while ago. Digitally done, with scanned in origami paper overlays. They feel spring-like to me. What do you think?

Textile Design-ish

Several people have recently asked if I’ve ever considered textile design, and the answer is of course a resounding ‘yes!’ – and then I remembered that I did have one illustration project several years ago that involved a little bit of textile design, namely designing tights and leggings for girls.

I don’t actually know how far the project ended up in the manufacturing process, but I was hired to illustrate the designs to certain specifications. I own the rights to these illustrations so I thought I would show you some of them today. Here are the detail images of the tights/leggings above:

 

It was really fun working on these, but since I basically just drew what the designer had in mind, I don’t really consider it textile designing in the truest sense (she did give me ample liberty to modify things if I saw fit though – so that was nice). I created about 30 designs and I believe 5 or 6 went into production mode.

The designer sent me a sample of one of the designs, and K wore these tights a lot:

Please excuse the pilling…I tried to get that depth of field thing going to hide the extreme pilling, but oh well. These were well-loved.

I think it’s time I looked into the Spoonflower rage that’s been going on. How fun would it be to sew something with fabric that I designed myself???

 

Sewing Illo

I haven’t posted a recent illustration in a while…this here’s a wee work in progress. I scanned in a small chalkboard and painted sewing notions with gold watercolor to merge with the scanned image. I’m liking the painted texture against the chalkboard surface. I used Yasutomo Asian watercolors, which are amazing. The pigments are vibrant and a little goes a long way. I have the 6-piece set, but want all the colors!

With the magic of Photoshop and a flick of a button, presto! We have aqua.

I think this would be cute in a sewing studio — what do you think? The triangles are supposed to be tailor’s chalk and that thing on the left that looks like a baby nasal aspirator (I had to look that up; I was calling it the nose-goop-removal-thing) is technically an awl. Like I said, a work in progress…