My new pear dress

I seldom have time for cranking out the sewing projects these days with Spoonflower, young'uns, and gardening season taking up nearly every second of free time in my day.  So it is with great relief--and perhaps a bit of surprise that it really is done--that I show you all my new Lollychops pear dress, finished at last!  As Lolly herself well knows from the gushy email I sent her when I first laid eyes on her printed pears, I love this design and was delighted to be able to own some myself when it won the fabric-of-the-week contest a few weeks back.  I've made a few little girl dresses from Spoonflower fabric, but these pears were for me!

For the clothing sewers among you, this was made from New Look 6586, and my review of this pattern is here.

Birdie Friends Wins + Six New Designs

Vote For the Next Spoonflower Fabric Of The Week!

Help choose the next fabric of the week! Six new designs are in the running this week from six new designers (although one of them we've linked to many times before). They are (above going clockwise from the upper left):

• pinwheel by Jacqueline Auvigne
• fortuna by Jon Keegan & Julie Kirkpatrick
• diamonds_fabric_2 by missykulik
• Folksy Teaparty V3 by Jhoanna Aranez
• paisleypatt by Mendi Bradley
• oilflower by Kathryn Orindgreff

Follow the results in real time here. Review the weekly contest rules and/or enter your own design here.
----------------------------

Congratulations to Craft Pudding!

Birdie friends" ran away with the voting last week, thus making it now the official Spoonflower fabric of the week. Be sure to check out Craft Pudding's blog and Etsy store for more of her work, but you can also purchase birdie friends as a limited edition for the next six days in the Spoonflower Etsy shop.

The final voting from last week left us with:

• Beerepeat5x7 by Helen Klebesadel  19.9%    363
• TulipsAndBirds by Sarah Masciana  14.4%    262
• Sunset Plaid by Jennifer Baumann   5.9%    108
• birdie friends by craftpudding  46.3%    844
• bluebonnet-kal-01 by Rebecca Ann Jordan   8.0%    146
• Trio of Handbags by High On Craft  5.4%    99

Upholstery-weight Testers

Update: Those of you who signed up on our tester list over the weekend should now see upholstery-weight cotton as an option in your Spoonflower accounts on the preview/purchase page.

Parasol magazine

Just browsing through all the blogs on our list this morning and, via Cicada Daydream, I read that Yasmine at A Print a Day recently launched Parasol, a free downloadable magazine about emerging designers and artists.  Among the many inspiring interviews and features are Spoonflower favorites, Samanth Hahn of Maquette, the lovely Lollychops, and Michelle Engel Benscko (of Cicada Daydream above).  I feel like I've been hit with an inspiration sledgehammer, y'all!  I'm counting down the hours til I can come back from the science museum trip I've promised my ready-to-leave-now-mom! girls this morning and immerse myself in gorgeous design world.  Download your free copy of Parasol here.  And if you'd like your images, articles, or tutorials to be featured, you can email Yasmine here.

Owls! New Contest! Upholstery-weight cotton!

After collecting the lion's share of votes last week, "Summer Owls" by Katharina Hirsch of Germany joins the illustrious line of Spoonflower fabrics-of-the-week. For the next five days or so, you can buy it as a limited edition fabric in our Etsy store.

Final voting totals were:

fabric_flowers_red by  Emmanuelle Carre 12.1%    2
summer owls by katharinahirsch 24.8%    434
birds by  Heather S 16.5%    289
small_leaves_tile by Michelle, Seattle 21.7%    380
Karelia by Päivi Eerola   9.9%    174
Millimask 1 by  Linnestina Lund  15.1% 264

---

Upholstery-Weight Cotton Makes Its Debut

Finally! Those of you who signed up for our upholstery test list before this week should already see the new fabric choice available in your Spoonflower accounts. If you are NOT on the list, the upholstery-weight is not yet visible to you. Although it is still in "test" mode, if you add your email to our list we'll make the new fabric visible in your account sometime over the next few days. It's a 10oz cotton sateen with a printable width of 55 inches for $35 p/yd. Perfect for bags as well as home-dec projects.

---

Vote for the Next Fabric of the Week

Cast your vote now for the next Spoonflower fabric of the week!

Contestants this week include (clockwise from the top-right):

• Beerepeat5x7 by Helen Klebesadel
• TulipsAndBirds by Sarah Masciana
• Sunset Plaid by Jennifer Baumann
• birdie friends by craftpudding
• bluebonnet-kal-01 by Rebecca Ann Jordan
• Trio of Handbags by High On Craft

This round we'll leave voting open through Wednesday to compensate for the ever-stretched schedule of your humble contest coordinator. Follow the results in real time here.

Enjoy the weekend.

Intermittent Site Outages

Fixed!

This morning we have discovered that -- due to some network shenanigans on the part of our Internet host --  the main Spoonflower site is inaccessible to some of you. The affected areas are scattered, but our site  seems to be down for most of Europe, and for a random number of other areas. Hopefully all will be well soon. Apologies!

Two Finnish, one German, one French, and two American designers walk into a fabric shop...

Ok. Make up your own punchline. It's an unusually international week -- even for the very international Spoonflower -- in the fabric of the week contest.

Above, from left to right, we have:

• fabric_flowers_red by  Emmanuelle Carre, Guerande - France
• summer owls by katharinahirsch, Germany
• birds by  Heather S
• small_leaves_tile by Michelle, Seattle - Washington - USA
• Karelia by Päivi Eerola, Espoo - Finland
• Millimask 1 by  Linnestina Lund, Finland

Vote to let us know which design you like best.

Follow the results in real time here.

___________________________________________

Congratulations to Mr. McCabe

Continuing the international theme, this week's fabric of the week winner is Jonathan McCabe of Canberra, Australia. His "evotree2" design very narrowly beat out Diane Tigue's "5thaveresize4".

You can now buy the design -- for a few days only -- in the Spoonflower Etsy shop.

Final voting results:

"At_The_Hop" by Carrie Torman,     4.4%    74
"evotree2" by Jonathan McCabe, Canberra,     28.5%    475
"ZIGZAG_ORNG" by louis,     11.3%    188
"apple" by rowsew,     21.6%    360
"5thaveresize4" by Diane Tigue,  28.1%    468
"red_hibiscus_pattern_a" by Sharon Blazer,     6.1%    101     

Two additional notes:

Lolly's Pears were our most popular fabric of the week design ever, exceeding previous record holder "Wolf and Little Red" by Gumball Grenade.

Diane Tigue, the runner up last week, wrote to tell me that she has managed to break both her feet. Yikes! You can drop her a get better soon note on her blog.

Faux headboard from Paper Pie

This photo of Paper Pie's new "headboard" in our Flickr pool caught my eye recently. I love her fabric designs and what a clever use for a group of coordinating designs!  Liz mentions this is a temporary decoration til a "real" headboard replaces her framed fabrics.  Me?  I'd keep it just like this!

Betz White inspiration

I sure hope the rest of you had a weekend as inspiring as I had!  In my last post, I mentioned the Betz White bag-making/felting workshop at Panopolie in Raleigh I was planning to attend.  It was six hours of awesome!  Betz was super friendly and very knowledgeable, not to mention armed with the most incredible stash of felted sweaters I've ever seen.  She showed us a big pile of her own projects to demonstrate what sorts of bags were possible and then just turned us loose on her felt stash, offering quick technique lessons here and there when asked.  It was so liberating to just wing it with the supplies in front of me for a change, not least because all my sewing projects lately have been of the follow-all-the-rules garment sewing variety.  Biggest lesson learned?  Loosen up sometimes, Kim!  I made the bag shown left, among a few other projects.

I also picked up a copy of Betz' new book, Sewing Green, while I was there and I strongly encourage you all to get one for yourselves.  There are some amazing project ideas, all beautifully photographed, and I've been inspired all weekend long.  I've already been to a local thrift shop for some cast-off cashmere sweaters in Easter egg colors.  Once I accumulate a few more, they're going to enjoy a second life as a felted cashmere throw for my oldest daughter who's getting her own room in the near future.  Have a sneak peek at some of Betz' project photos, including her felted cashmere blanket, here!

For locals--Betz White workshop tomorrow!

This has been such a slammed week, both for Spoonflower and for Stephen and I personally.  I'm pretty relieved that it's coming to an end, especially because tomorrow I get to reward myself with a marathon crafting class taught by none other than Betz White!  Betz is going to be in Raleigh at Panoplie tomorrow morning, from 9:00 am til 3:00 pm, showing us eager crafty types how to make bags out of recycled and reused materials and how to needle-felt and make projects from our results.  She'll also be available afterwards to sign copies of her new book, Sewing Green: 25 Projects Made with Repurposed & Organic Materials.  If any of you fellow North Carolinians need a crafting break as much as I do, call Panoplie to register.  I hope to see some Spoonflower users there!

Fruit-Loot! Congratulations to LollyChops + 6 New Designs

With a record turnout in the most recent round of voting, "PearPops Gumbo" by LollyChops is officially a Spoonflower Fabric-of-the-week!

I've been remiss in waiting so long to announce it, but for the next (precious) few days you can buy this lovely fabric in the Spoonflower Etsy shop. And even if you're not in a shopping mood, be sure to stop by Lolly's blog to say hello.

Final voting in the last contest went like this:
clouds  by Valentina Sedda: 4.4%    113
PearFabric by Lollychops: 40.8%    1,049
animals by suryasajnani: 24.5%    629
Favorite Thing Floral Leaf by Sarah: 17.9%    460
Heart and Bubbles by Leonor Bautista: 6.7%    171
Yellow Cakes by Mary Helen Mcnally: 5.7%    146
_____________________________

Six New Designs for Voting -- Finally!

Well, after a couple of weeks of delaying the contest in favor of little priorities like, well, repairing the printers that keep our business running, we're back this week with six new fabric designs from six new designers. For those who have asked, we have done our best so far not to put any individual designer into two contests, nevermind how many designs he or she  may have submitted. We're trying to spread out the competition by including as many of you as possible from the (large) pool of folks who have submitted their work for consideration. By and large we go through the list chronologically each week, choosing six new designs from the complete entries (public profile, public design, valid Spoonflower link). You can review the rules and/or enter your design here.

And now for the good stuff:

 

In the lineup this week, clockwise from the top left:

• "At_The_Hop" by Carrie Torman, Gainesville, Virginia
• "evotree2" by Jonathan McCabe, Canberra - A.C.T. - Australia
• "ZIGZAG_ORNG" by louis
• "apple" by rowsew, Dorset - UK
• "5thaveresize4" by Diane Tigue, Savannah, Ga
• "red_hibiscus_pattern_a" by Sharon Blazer, Decatur, Illinois

Vote to let us know which design you like best.

Follow the results in real time here.