« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »
You already know that your Spoonflower fabric is fabulous and eminently sewable, but don't chuck that perfectly usable Tyvek envelope we shipped it in! I just saw this tutorial (via Craft) from Becky Stern on how to transform your used Tyvek envelope into a lunch bag--mighty timely if you've got a back-to-schooler like me. Becky says that the resulting lunch bag won't last forever, but having seen a similar project (a Tyvek tote) in Betz White's new book, Sewing Green, and having also been lucky enough to fondle said Tyvek tote in a Betz workshop awhile back, I've gotta say it seems like pretty sturdy stuff to me!
Christmas Tree Addiction from Adiqshun
After our first marathon round of voting in the Christmas-themed Fabric-of-the-Week contest, congratulations are due to photographer and designer Melissa Copeland (check her out here).
Her Adiqshun Designs Tree won the most votes last week in a field of no less than eighteen competitors. Thinking about switching to wrapping fabric this year instead of paper? You can buy this lovely design for the next six days only in the Spoonflower Etsy shop.
You can refresh your memory about the competing designs in our Flickr pool, but final vote totals were:
Thanks to all for participating!
------------------
This week we have another 18 fabulous holiday-themed designs (and one more week to go before we exhaust this particular theme). They are:
Voting closes next week on Wednesday. Follow the current vote count in real time.
Although it's too late to submit a Christmas design, you can still read about our Christmas design contest.
Free Swatch Day: Thursday, August 20th. Starting at midnight tonight and lasting through 11:59 pm on Thursday (EST), you can get up to two free, printed swatches. We're taking Free Swatch Day as an opportunity to raise money for Heifer International, an organization that provides livestock, training and services to small-scale farmers and communities worldwide. Have fun. This is a great opportunity for folks new to Spoonflower to give us a try, so please help us spread the word! We've posted all the Free Swatch Day details HERE.
Remember that fabric survey we posted a few weeks ago? Well, we haven't been able to put together everything you wanted but we do have two very exciting new fabrics to announce based on your suggestions. Free swatches, anyone?
Organic Cotton Interlock Knit ($27/yard). 100% organic cotton. Very soft, natural off-white knit perfect for t-shirts, dresses, baby clothes and more.
Bamboo-Cotton Poplin ($27/yard). Rayon made from 40% bamboo / 60% cotton blend has a very soft hand and smooth, absorbent surface.
Congratulations to Tricia Tharp, aka Frizz from the Frizzelstix blog, of Detroit, Michigan. Her Hedgie Garden
won the most votes in our contest last week. [Very gratifying to those
of us who have been promoting hedgies as the new owls.] As a
consequence, you can buy all the hedgie fabric you want -- for one week
only -- in the Spoonflower Etsy shop.
Final vote tally was:
_____________________
After a flood of entries since last week's email -- around fifty in all -- we've got 18 holiday-themed fabric designs for you to vote on this week, then another two batches over the next two weeks. That way you'll have all the Christmas fabric out of your system early, eh? This week, by way of compensation for looking at all those designs, we're giving each voter two votes. The design with the highest tally will be the winner of week one. We'll announce the winner next week and then post another big batch for voting!
If you submitted a design and don't see it here, never fear. To the best of our ability, we'll get to all of the designs over the next few weeks. Contest participants in our first round include:
Voting closes next week on Tuesday. Follow the current vote count in real time.
Although it's too late to submit a Christmas design, you can still read about our Christmas design contest.
We are thrilled to be working with Sewing Green author Betz White to offer a limited edition Sewing Green print on 100% organic cotton, along with a chance to win a free book!
Click the link below for details:
To liven things up in our already lively Fabric Of the Week competition, we've decided to try a few themed contests. Our first theme is... Christmas! Why? Because if you're planning to make things for Christmas this year you probably need to get to work early.
The big difference between our themed contests and our usual contests is that themed contests will be open to everyone, including those designers whose work has been featured in (and perhaps even won) previous competitions. Regular readers know that in general we have tried to feature new designers each week in the Fabric Of the Week contest and thus have ignored multiple entries. To manage themed contests, we'll be creating a new form for each contest with a clean slate on each one. Entry is open to one and all, but keep in mind that you will have to have a Spoonflower account to enter and the design you want to enter has to be in your account.
Read all about it and submit your own Christmas design right here.
Fabric of the Week Winner:
AspenPrint1 by Michelle Biondolillo won a clear majority in last week's voting. Congratulations, Michelle!
For the next six days only you can buy this print in the Spoonflower Etsy shop. Among other things, Michelle has designed a line of organic childrens' clothing, so be sure to check out her work on www.schuylark.com
For a refresher on the fabrics competing last week, you can always look at our Flickr set. Final voting from last week gave us:
Someone wrote to us to suggest that we run a week with only cartoon-like designs, which would be fun to do sometime soon. More on themed contests in our next post.
--------------------------Vote for the Next Fabric Of the Week
![[photo] Vote for your favorite fabric design](http://gallery.mailchimp.com/dee209d512d07ce1c58bd6a4f/images/contest_fabrics.jpg "[photo] Vote for your favorite fabric design")
Admire six new designs from six new designers and vote for your favorite. They are (left to right, starting from the top):
Voting closes next week on Tuesday. Follow the current vote count in real time.
If you're looking for the contest rules and entry form, they are here -- but you may prefer to enter a themed contest. See our next post for details.
More sewing projects lately as I try to think up reasons to stay inside where the air-conditioning is. 100 degrees in NC today--ack!
Stephen and I have been in sore need of placemats for some time now seeing as how our two younger daughters' dinners end up mostly on the table rather than in their mouths. I'm nearly through with this set that I made mostly out of scraps I had on hand. The green floral scraps and backing are a reworked vintage floral that I printed up on the linen/cotton, though, and I'm thrilled to find an everyday use for it. It's a bit tight getting my perle cotton running stitches through the close weave, but sore fingers notwithstanding, I'm pleased with how this project is turning out so far. I may add more machine-stitched circles and more running stitched circles in green--especially if we keep having more 100 degree days around here!
Now vying for the title of 'world's craftiest city', Portland gives us yet another Spoonflower fabric of the week winner in the person of illustrator Meghan Jean, whose accomplishments include work for Dark Horse Comics. Meghan's 'Beta Clouds' won the most votes last week, which means that a lucky few can buy her limited edition fabric for the next six days from the Spoonflower Etsy shop. Congratulations, Meghan!
Final vote tally:
Thanks to all for participating!
-----------------
Six new designs from six new designers:
Click here to let us know which design you like best. Voting closes next week on Tuesday.
Follow the current vote count in real time.
If you're looking for the contest rules and entry form, they are here.
Coming next week: New Fabrics + Free Swatch Day
I think of summer as my "indoor season." In mid-summer NC, it's just too darn hot to do anything but sit inside and sew. Apparently, my oldest daughter and her friend thought so too, it being a scorching 95 degrees even before lunch today. These two accompanied me to the Spoonflower office this morning and looked very cozy and crafty indeed, sitting on our sofa, checking out Diane Gilleland's new book, Kanzashi in Bloom, and sorting through pretty fabric bits.
Naturally, we have no shortage of fabric scraps lying around the house and the office, so it was a simple matter for my 11-year old to put together a cute little flower, following all Diane's excellent instructions on her own and wrangling the hot glue gun like a pro. No word on what the flower is going to be used for but it's cute, huh? New necklaces are next on our craft list, I think!
It's a little quiet around here this week in the shop. Of course, the printers are going full-blast on a healthy queue of designs, but Spoonflower is down a couple of awesome employees as of last Friday.
Rachel, pictured center front, has gone off to try her hand at law school after cracking the whip over Spoonflower finances for the past few months. We'll miss Rachel's organizational gifts, but I hope it won't offend her if I say that I'll really miss her sense of style and unbelievable shoe collection. It was always a treat for me to see what she had on her feet when she arrived for work--a different pair every day, though a particular pair of purple leather flats with leopard buckles stands out in my memory.
Allie, pictured at the far right front, was a summer intern with us who has left us to finish her degree in fashion and textile merchandising at N.C. State. Allie had the most solid work ethic of any person her age I think I've ever met--or perhaps of anyone I've ever met! Allie ran the printers from the wee hours of the morning til the late morning crew showed up. Then she'd move over to the cutting table and bust out bin after bin full of packaged fabric--all without a single complaint. Ever.
We've been very lucky to have attracted good folks to Spoonflower, and are very sorry to see these two go! Good luck, y'all!
Recent Comments