• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • shop
  • Illustration Portfolio
  • About
  • My Books

Sanae Ishida

A crafty little atelier in a grey city

February 20, 2013

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???

 

digital, illustration 4 Comments

Previous Post: « Gluten-free Cupcake-Off
Next Post: Creative Writing »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. sarah says

    February 20, 2013 at 8:25 am

    wow the strawberries were by far my favorite and to see them on tights was so great!
    wonderful work.
    also how cool that you were willing to try gluten free baking! gluten free is hard enough but i can’t imagine adding in other allergies. what a great friend. i’m gluten free and have been for a year and i know how special it would be to have someone making something ‘special’.

    Reply
  2. Venus says

    February 20, 2013 at 9:40 am

    YES! yes! yes!yes! I would love to see what you create. The illustrations you made for the designer is nice, but it’s definitely not your truest form. If you ever have fabric done, I’ll be your first customer!!! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Lucinda says

    February 20, 2013 at 11:22 am

    sanae + spoonflower = match made in heaven:)

    Reply
  4. sanae says

    February 20, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    Thanks ladies! Can’t wait to try out spoonflower!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address below to get blog posts delivered to your in-box. I'll occasionally include fun digital goodies!

Order My New Book!!

Order My Latest Sewing Book!!

Archives

Categories

May 5th is a very special day for me. Not only is May 5th is a very special day for me. Not only is it Japanese children’s day and Cinco de Mayo (a very big deal in Los Angeles where I grew up), it’s also the publication date of my very first book that I wrote and illustrated. Today, Little Kunoichi is 10 YEARS OLD!!! Crazy, crazy. This wee ninja girl completely changed my life. 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜 I’m pleased to report that a decade later I’m still in cahoots with @lbfbooks and we have a new book releasing this summer. Little K is back, albeit in a slightly different format…excited to share more soon!! 🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷
Follow on Instagram

© 2025 Sanae Ishida