The Spoonflower Welcome Pack is the perfect way to share your love of
Spoonflower with other crafty, creative people in your life. Each
Welcome Pack includes a $35 gift certificate that can be used for
anything on Spoonflower — including fabrics, wallpaper, wall decals or
gift wrap — a book full of inspirational projects by one of our
favorite artists called Heather Ross Prints: 50+ Designs and 20 Projects to Get You Started,
a sample pack of all our base fabrics, and a lovely package that
includes free shipping anywhere in the world. For $60, it's a great
introduction to the world of Spoonflower fun.
heather ross
Friday Photo
Heather Ross designs printed onto Kona cotton.
These designs were pulled from Heather’s new book, Heather Ross Prints: 50+ Designs Plus 20 Projects to Get You Started, a book we’re very excited about at Spoonflower. Along with plenty of project inspiration and gorgeous photos, the book comes with a disk of more than 50 of Heather’s out-of-print designs and her permission to print them at will for all sorts of lovely paper and fabric projects.
We’ll have some good news about Heather Ross’ book coming up soon that we can’t reveal just yet but while you wait, do check out the CreativeBug/Heather Ross promo going on right now. Enter your email address on their site between now and 10/1 and enjoy a free Heather Ross workshop and book preview, plus be entered for a giveaway of Heather’s book, a 3-month subscription to Creativebug, and $50 of Spoonflower fabric. Good luck, everyone, and happy weekend!
Creativebug subscription giveaway
There seem to be so many ways now to learn how to make stuff–"real life" crafting and sewing classes at local and chain shops, YouTube videos you can go to for a quick visual primer on specific techniques, sewalongs hosted on blogs, and now a more recent development that we're watching with great interest here at Spoonflower–websites that offer crafting and sewing classes for a small fee taught by people who really know their stuff. Classes on sites like Craftsy and Creativebug tend to be much more affordable than traditional in-person classes, potentially more reliable than content you might dig up yourself on YouTube, and of course, still pause-able and rewind-able should you miss something or need to see something done over again–and again.
Creativebug is the newest player on the online crafting class scene, and we're thrilled to be offering a 3-month Creativebug subscription for today's giveaway! This subscription will get you 3-months' worth of unlimited access to classes taught by the likes of Heather Ross, Liesl Gibson, Natalie Chanin, Anna Maria Horner, and Cal Patch–and those are just some of the sewing instructors. Other instructors teach classes on bookbinding, ceramics, needle-felting, and many other categories, so you're sure to learn plenty about your favorite crafty subjects from some of the most talented and experienced people out there.
To enter today's giveaway, just leave your comment below or on the corresponding Facebook post and tell us which class or instructor on Creativebug you find most exciting. Don't forget to include your Spoonflower screen name or some other means of contacting you in case you're our winner. Entries close next Tuesday, 9/18 and we'll announce a winner–and a special offer from Creativebug!–next Wednesday, 9/19. Good luck, everyone!
Last week we were giving away a copy of Gretchen Hirsch's new book, Gertie's Book for Better Sewing, and the winner was Spoonflower community member Ariel Shogren. We also held an impromptu–and brief–giveaway on the blog yesterday for our Northeastern US peeps for two tickets to the non-profit Quilt Alliance's second annual Quilters Take Manhattan event coming up this Saturday, 9/15 in NYC. Laura Alvarez won those tickets today, so congrats to both Ariel and Laura!
Heather Ross Weekend Sewing Workshop NYC
Heather Ross sewing workshoppers busy at their projects in the Sewing Studio
I don’t usually start my Mondays feeling inspired and cheerful but this Monday is different. Coming off a weekend spent at a sewing workshop in one of the world’s greatest cities will do that to a girl. My dear spouse recently surprised me with a spot in a Heather Ross Weekend Sewing Workshop in NYC (bless him), and if you’ve never spent a weekend away, sewing and fabric shopping with other sewing geeks, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Heather Ross teaches sewing and fabric design workshops throughout the year, and this particular one also included sewing rock stars Liesl Gibson, designer of Oliver + S children’s sewing patterns, and Gretchen Hirsch, author of Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing and Gertie’s New Book for Better Sewing, as instructors. We kicked off our weekend on Friday night with a private shopping and socializing event at PurlSoho, followed by a lively dinner at nearby pan-Asian restaurant. The next morning, we got down to sewing business in the airy work rooms of The Sewing Studio. Each workshopper worked on projects they’d brought with them while our three lovely instructors circulated around, making themselves available for help with fitting, pattern interpretations, and expert answers to all manner of sewing questions. Most of the sewing I do is in complete isolation and I can’t tell you how handy it is to have an expert fitting buddy to help!
Between working on our own projects, Heather and Liesl treated us to some sneak peeks of their new fabric lines. Heather’s sweet nursery-rhyme inspired Nursery-Versery will be released by Kokka in June, while Liesl’s lusciously colorful Ladies’ Stitching Club is coming out through Moda in July. We got the early news that both Liesl and Heather, along with other talented sewers and crafters, will be offering instructional videos via a new, online sewing and crafting class venue set to launch soon. (You can sign up for news of CreativeBug’s launch on their home page.)
Heather also let us browse a working copy of her new book, Heather Ross Prints, which is being released sometime this fall. Do you all know about this book? I was kind of blown away by what Heather’s doing with it. Along with the book which contains lots of pretty and inspiring projects that I haven’t seen elsewhere and which I’d buy all on its own, Heather is including a disk containing 50+ of her own fabric designs that you can use for whatever you want–printing fabric, wallpaper, stationery, rice paper lanterns, anything! Is that not crazy generous? It’s such a different approach to designing and to copyright and ownership. We’ve pre-ordered a signed giveaway copy but if you’re a Heather Ross fan, I might not wait to see if you win our giveaway if I were you. I suspect it’ll go fast!
One of my very favorite things about the workshop was being able to talk freely about sewing and garment-fitting without anyone’s eyes glazing over, feeling confident that if I said “Liberty” or “ball-point needle” or “Marimekko” or “serger” I wouldn’t have to explain a thing. Hanging out with your tribe is just the best, don’t you think?
Heather Ross giveaway and Merchant & Mills giveaway winner
Heather Ross plus a little girl-friendly craft project? Yes, please! This week's giveaway is for a copy of Crafty Chloe, a new children's book with a clever and crafty young heroine written by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by popular fabric designer Heather Ross. We'll also throw in two yards of Kona cotton printed with the designs Heather created to make up a doll-sized quilt, one a mini-scale cheater quilt print and a coordinating yellow rose print intended for the backing. (You may recognize these fabrics from a recent project featured on the Martha Stewart Show last month where Heather demonstrated how to make a clementine crate doll bed complete with a tiny, coordinating quilt. View the video tutorial for the entire project here.)
To enter this giveaway, just leave your comment below or on the coordinating Facebook post, and include your Spoonflower name so we can find you easily if you're our winner. Entries close next Tuesday, 4/17 at 7 pm EST, and we'll announce a winner on 4/18. Good luck, everyone! This giveaway is now closed, and we'll be announcing a winner shortly.
Last week's winner of the lovely Merchant & Mills sewing notions set was Jacquie Wheeler–congratulations, Jacquie!
We’re giving away a copy of Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross!
With Christmas chaos behind us at Spoonflower, we're finally getting to catch our breath, slow down, and consider our own creative projects again. I love this time of year actually, when everything seems to come to a sudden halt compared to the previous week's frenetic pace. (But don't worry; the printers are still printing up your fabric orders!)
In the spirit of dreaming up projects of your own that you can enjoy and–dare I say it?–perhaps even keep for yourself, we're giving away a copy of Heather Ross' book Weekend Sewing. You can view a Flickr pool of projects from this book here. To enter, just leave a comment on this post or on the corresponding Facebook post that includes your Spoonflower screen name. Entries close at 7 pm EST, Tuesday, 1/2/12. For fun, please let us know what your next post-holiday sewing project will be. Mine is to finish an improvisational cross quilt I've had on my design wall for six months now. (Yes, really–six months!) Good luck, everyone!
Thanks to all of you who commented on last week's giveaway post. The winner of the Fat Quarterly subscription was Anja Hanschmann of Germany (annosch), and the winner of the Selvedge subscription was Erin Thornton. We'll be contacting the winners shortly and arranging delivery of these beautiful publications. Congratulations to you both!
New limited-edition, special Heather Ross for Spoonflower fabrics: w/ little girls and horses
We are very excited, once again, to announce a series of special edition fabrics by the fabulous Heather Ross available through Spoonflower for a limited time only (30 days). As I write this, Heather is actually appearing on the Martha Stewart show, sewing baby bloomers out of this adorable horsey fabric alongside Martha herself. Heather has got new fabric coming out soon through Kokka, and you can read all about that, as well as all her other cool, ongoing projects, over at her blog.
Buy Limited-Edition Heather Ross Fabrics
Today is your last chance to buy Macaroni Love Story, limited edition fabric by Heather Ross!
Back in September, celebrated illustrator and fabric designer Heather Ross decided to make a limited edition collection of prints available through Spoonflower, the lovely and charming series called Macaroni Love Story. [Kim liked it so much that our girls's room now has Clothes Pin People curtains.]
Well, we've finally reached the 'limit' part of limited edition, so it's time to bid farewell to these lovely fabrics. Today (Friday, December 17) will be the last day they are available for sale. Sigh.
Celebrity Fabric Design Smackdown starts Thursday: Meet the contenders
This week's contest is a one of a kind event: the world's first Celebrity Fabric Design Smackdown, a contest between fabrics created by five amazing textile designers: Heather Ross, Lizzie House, Harmony Susalla, Samarra Khaja and Cean Irminger. Are they as ruthless as they are talented? We'll find out!
The contenders designed their fabrics specifically for this contest. The theme this week? The elements (earth, air, fire, and water). Voting starts on Thursday, November 11th!
11/18/2010 UPDATE: Buy the fabrics, including Samarra's winning design!
And In This Corner…
Heather Ross. Heather Ross is an illustrator, textile designer, and creative crafter working in New York. She has been working on a pile of children’s books recently, and a line of new girl’s surfboards will soon be graced with her drawings. Heather also runs sewing workshops related to her book, Weekend Sewing, during which you can make clothes and quilts out of one of her fabrics, or write a note to a friend on her stationery. Her patterns and drawings evoke the sea, childhood, and fairy tales for a variety of clients. Her limited edition fabric collection Macaroni Love Story is currently available on Spoonflower, but not for much longer! The fabric designer she most admires? Vera Neumann.
Harmony Susalla. Harmony Susalla, founder of Harmony Art, walked away from a successful career designing commercial textiles to help inspire big change in the way textiles are grown and processed. Organic fabric has historically been beautiful shades of oatmeal and granola. Harmony is helping change that by infusing color and design with environmentally sensitive inks and dyes. Her designs are inspired by nature and her business is motivated to protect it. She loves the way digital printing is allowing for zero waste print runs! The fabric designer she most admires is Gerald Holtom, who designed the iconic peace sign in 1958 as part of a protest against nuclear proliferation. She says, "The symbol was created from the Naval sign language for the letters N & D for Nuclear Disarmament. Fifty-two years later it's meaning has expanded well beyond the bewildering circle and 3 lines of the day to be a universal sign for peace. Gerald Holtom deliberately did not copyright the symbol. To leave a visual legacy so meaningful — and without wanting recognition — that I really admire."
Lizzie House. Lizzy House is a printmaker, textile designer, and illustrator. Armed with a BFA in Printmaking, she travels the world in search of inspiration. A born go-getter, Lizzy was the youngest designer in the textile industry when she began three years ago. She has penned the only available resource for letting you get to know the who, what, where, when and why of getting started in the textile industry via the quilting world. How to Enter the World of Textile Design: For the quilting industry is available as a downloadable e-book, and can be found at www.lizzyhouse.com When she isn't printing or designing fabric, or sleeping on an airplane, she is probably planning a party or writing a list. If neither of those is underway, she is probably tying a bow on something and/or someone. The designer she most admires? Alexander Girard. She says, "He kind of took a back seat in many ways to Eames and George Nelson during the whole mid-century movement, but he, in my opinion, created the idea of a modern textile designer. Crossing form, function, and education with decoration to elevate a space. His designs are clean, and sometimes ethnic, and the more I learn about him, the more I like him."
Samarra Khaja (representing the home team!). Samarra Khaja says that the second best thing about having lived and traveled in five continents before the age of ten is her firsthand exposure to multicultural design. [The best thing is having discovered her love for spicy, and sometimes odd, food.] A lover of bold, bright, clean design, she is most often drawn to Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics. With a studio art background in printmaking, drawing and photography, she enjoys bouncing between mediums just to keep things interesting. Samarra works in New York City as a graphic designer and art director, and although her mother holds a degree in textile design, she'd never even thought to venture into the world of textile design until stumbling across Spoonflower which has provided her a personal outlet to create designs that are meaningful, playful and, always a bit rascally. She's left-handed, loves the color green and is a sucker for any and all animals. Samarra has won five Spoonflower Fabric Of the Week contests. Her favorite design brand? Marimekko makes her drool.
Cean Irminger (also representing the home team!). By day Cean Irminger is a mild mannered mosaicist at New Ravenna Mosaics on the idyllic Eastern Shore of Virginia. By night she is an amateur fabric designer, whose obsessions with the animal kingdom, folk lore, word play and all things ridiculous often pop up in her designs. She currently lives in the woods with a patient husband, a saucy baby, a junkyard dog and a deadly cat. She, too, has won five Spoonflower Fabric Of the Week contests. Her favorite designer? None other than Heather Ross! She says, "I stumbled onto some of her fabrics on Etsy, fell in love with her illustrative style, wondered if I could design fabric, and found Spoonflower, all in the same week!"
A Fight To the Selvage
Starting on Thursday, November 11, 2010, you'll have the chance to vote for one of the five fabric designs submitted, which will be posted without the designers' names attached to them during the one-week voting period. In next week's email we'll announce the winner, at which point all the designs will be made available for sale with 20% of the proceeds being donated to a charity selected by the winner.
To receive a link to the voting as soon as it opens up on Thursday, you'll need to do at least one of the following things:
- Sign up for a free Spoonflower account (with the option under your 'account settings' checked to receive updates from us). Chances are, you've already done this.
- Subscribe to our weekly email.
- Like the Spoonflower Facebook page
- Follow Spoonflower on Twitter
- Check back on the Spoonflower contest page any time before Wednesday, Nov. 17th (when voting closes), where you'll find a link to the voting.
Drawing to win new Heather Ross fabrics, available only on Spoonflower
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that noted textile designer and illustrator Heather Ross has released a new line of fabrics called Macaroni Love Story, available only through Spoonflower… and for a limited time. There are seventeen fabrics in the collection, and we're celebrating the launch by giving away a full set of fat quarters to six lucky folks.
We'll hold two drawings on Thursday (Sept. 9), two on Friday (Sept. 10) and the last two on Monday (Sept. 13). Each day's drawings will be held around 3pm EST and we'll post the winners in the comments on this blog post, as well as on the Spoonflower Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Please enter only once! We'll use Random.org to select the winning email addresses. Good luck!