meet the designer

This Fabric Design Workshop Will Inspire You!

July 10, 2017

What do you get when you mix a Spoonflower designer, five eager students, and the cutest handmade shop? Thanks to designer and maker Leah Gaeddert, leahfayegaeddert in the Marketplace, you get a one-of-a-kind hands on fabric design workshop! We’re often asked how to teach a fabric design workshop and when Leah told the Spoonflower team about her class, we knew we had to find out more! If you’ve ever wanted to see how you could share your design skills with your local community, this is the post for you. Keep reading to find out the keys to teaching a successful fabric design workshop by the teacher herself.

Leah: A few weeks ago I hosted my first fabric design workshop at a new Wichita, Kansas shop, Liv + Work. Olivia Grant is a local Wichita maker who just opened up her shop full of handmade goods this past April and regularly hosts workshops out of the back!

Liv + Work, a shop full of handmade goods, also plays host to workshops like Leah’s fabric design class

Meet the Designer: Samarra Khaja aka SammyK

July 3, 2017

Meet the designer Sammara Khaja aka SammyK | Spoonflower Blog

design by sammyk

Samarra Khaja, or SammyK as she’s known on Spoonflower, is not only a designer and community favorite, she’s also a talented pattern-maker (see this and this), has a much-loved class on Skillshare and consistently finds ways to inspire other designers and makers. Much of Samarra’s own inspiration is centered around New York City—in fact, if her two-story house grew legs and stood up, she’d be able to see the Empire State Building from her upstairs office. (She’s still waiting for it to do that.) Enjoy our candid chat with Samarra below!

My day starts with:
“Coffee, getting my kids ready to go to school, coming home to my studio and plotting what’s next on my never-ending to-do list. I also typically forget to eat when I should and always seem to hatch new creative brainwaves moments before I’m supposed to leave the house. Always!”

Meet the Designer: Sarah Walden aka Peacoquette Designs

May 8, 2017

Design “Palm in Palm Duchess” by peacoquettedesigns

Our latest featured designer’s love for all things historical is the inspiration behind her aesthetic for Peacoquette Designs. Sarah Walden is based in East Nashville, Tennessee, in a “wee stone cottage” with her husband, David, and daughter, Emily Haddyr. It’s there that her range of digital tools and skills help her transform public domain images into surface designs for today’s modern aesthetic, breathing new life into forgotten, yet beautiful antique prints. Get to know Sarah and see some of her most popular designs below!

Meet the Designer: Christina Veit AKA Friztin

April 24, 2017

Christina (Friztin on Spoonflower) has been with our design community for a while now, and we have always been fans of her abstract, textural signature style. She was randomly selected to win our giveaway for a free pass to the Makers Summit Conference, where we had a chance to chat and get to know her a bit better. We knew we had to interview Christina so that our community could hear her story as well. Follow along as Christina shares her influences and how she got started in design!

Friztin’s color swatches help her plan the palettes she uses in her designs

Meet the Designer: Vicky Webb aka Crumpetsandcrabsticks

February 27, 2017

It’s not every day that you get to meet a designer who lives on the Isle of Man. Vicky Webb (crumpetsandcrabsticks) designs from atop a hill overlooking the quay in the Isle of Man’s capital, Douglas. The picturesque island is nestled between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Keep reading to learn about Vicky’s sources of inspiration and all the tools she has in her designer tool box!

Meet the Designer: Vince Desjardins aka Vinpauld

January 2, 2017

In the latest edition of our Meet the Designer series, we discuss the creative process with Vince Desjardins (Vinpauld), a designer living in Bloomington, Indiana inclined toward trees, birds, and vintage items. Vince recently also made the top 5 in our Aurora Borealis Design Challenge. Visit his Spoonflower shop and read on to learn how he incorporates wildlife into his imaginative ditsy and toile designs.

[Read more…] about Meet the Designer: Vince Desjardins aka Vinpauld

Meet the Designer: Kate Fearn aka Petite_circus

October 10, 2016

In the latest iteration of our Meet the Designer series, we discuss life and creativity with Kate Fearn (Petite_circus), a designer and illustrator who works from home in the Stroud Valleys, UK. With 14 years of in-house experience designing and illustrating children’s books, she has more recently broadened her portfolio to include surface design. Her work is inspired by everything from historic textiles, to English heritage, and fairy tales. Visit her Spoonflower shop, check out her recent winning “Vintage Christmas” design, and keep reading to find out what she’s up to these days.

Meet the Designer: Kristi Heck

April 25, 2016

Today we'd like you to meet designer Kristi Heck as part of our new Meet the Designer series. Hailing from Panama then California, and most recently the great, green rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, Kristi is inspired by her natural environment and uses acrylic paints to create scenes involving friendly creatures, soil, vegetables, and lots of vivid color. She's down to earth in more ways than one–keep reading and get to know what gets Kristi's creative juices flowing.

Where do you currently live? I live in Hood River, Oregon.

My day starts with the little dog whining to be invited on the bed. Once she’s up (sitting on my chest, attempting to lick), the big dog arrives. His warm fuzzy head smells like corn chips. After a quiet moment, I’m up: feed dogs, make coffee, drink coffee with husband, pack lunches, wake kids, get dressed, breakfast kids, walk dogs and kids to school, return with just dogs. Then it’s down to my studio to work…

I fell in love with fabric design when… I turned around. This love (sort of, not really) snuck up on me. Our house is chockfull of textiles: Pendleton wool, reverse appliqué molas by the Guna Yala of Panama, Indian kantha quilts, chunky knits, plush flokati, African Dutch wax block prints, and a crazy variety of patterned throw pillows. I’ve always loved designing with fabrics; I’m brand new to designing actual fabrics. Our family moved to Hood River mid-December 2013, our first winter in about ten years. Time lived in Southern California combined with six years in the Republic of Panama had left us cold. Literally. So I over-dressed and began painting creatures hibernating. Soon, the animals migrated into human beds. Painting their bedding was my favorite part. I thought I’d try designing fabric versus just painting it, but the ability to create a repeat pattern eluded me… I have dozens of horrible designs stashed in file folders titled “Trials” and “Tribulations.” Then I found the class “How to design fabric” at creativebug.com featuring Spoonflower. Click! Apparently, my visual brain required a visual demo, as I later uncovered near-verbatim written instruction in multiple fabric design books I already own!

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meet the designer