My aha! moment

Well, I just realized I'm a bit of a scatter brain.

I'm sure I knew this at some other point in my life but, I guess I forgot.

All this worry about my novelty fabric and here I am forgetting a valuable piece on information from my computer aided fashion design class. If I had known it was lost I could of just sent Indiana Jones after it he can find anything... even magnetic alien skulls...

(In my defense my professor only mentioned it once in class among a bazillion other things and she had an accent too so I'm actually proud of myself for remembering/understanding this minuscule tid-bit of knowledge that was offered to me in a sea of computer facts.)

Ok so now the piece of lost information. When I was working on creating my repeat pattern design my professor told us about a couple different websites that you can send your design off to and they can print it for you! 

How cool right? Problems solved!

Well sort of.

Now I'm down to the mind boggling difficult simple task of creating the pattern(s) I want to print. I think I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go with that but, I really just need to sit down and come up with 20 or so designs to test print. 

Also there is the problem of what fabric to print it on. I was originally leaning toward a silk or some nice light, airy fabric but now with my endless possibilities of what I can print on I'm slightly confused. 

In no particular order are some sites that I found and why they caught my eye.

(1)

Sano Design Services 

These are some fabrics that Sano has previously printed.

Amazing right?

(2)

Karma Kraft 

Karma Kraft also prints original designs and can even produce a product for you like pillow shams or pet beds.

So cute!

(3)

spoonflower

The thing about Spoonflower that caught my eye was that they are the host to the fabric of the week contest in which they give you a theme and you create a fabric to submit into the contest. Once submitted people can vote on you designs. The winning fabric is then showcased through emails and blog posts as a fabric for sale. The winner receives 10% of any of the fabric sold AND a $100 gift card to Spoonflower. I think that's pretty nifty.

This is the fabric of the week. The theme was "Roller Derby", this fabric is called Derby Girls Rock by cjldesigns.

Well after all this typing I think I need to go use my creative resources to eat make some gorgeous fabrics!

Fabric... or lack there of.

Well there is the darndest thing about designing a collection of clothes you have to have fabric to actually make the clothes out of. 


Humph, who knew.


 So now I'm on the hunt for amazing fabrics for my collection as well as a great image to pull my color scheme from but if only life were that easy! 
I wish I could just type into google "beautiful western print silk" and

VOILA!!

The perfect fabric is magically there.

I'm leaning toward screen printing my own fabric because I'm really feeling as though I'm not going to find what I really want,

which is even more difficult since I'm not quite sure what I want.

UGH. 


This is fabric I screen printed for my last mini collection that was inspired by 19th century gypsies.

It was for this jacket...

Sorry I don't have any finished pictures of the jacket but it turned out really quite cool.


I found a few fabrics on Mood but I'm so driven by texture that I have to order a swatch and I'm just to darn impatient to wait that long.

Yet these are the ones I've found so far...

1. Metallic Copper Damask Brocade. 

 I really like this one as far as the color, print, and the way it looks distressed. The only thing that worries me is the description says metallic which could mean a bunch of different things. Call me crazy but I don't recall Clint Eastwood riding around in a metallic, sparkling, sequin-y pair of chaps in his spaghetti westerns.

2. Stone/ Black Misc Jersey Prints.

I actually love this one but again I have my apprehensions about the fact that it's a jersey I don't know how much will be made from a knit =/ buuut since I love this fabric I think it will have to be used in some piece in the collection. 

3. Mineral Ikat Prints

4. Mineral Ikat Prints

The blue one has a great feel to it but I'm worried about the colors. The red and mustard color scheme almost feels like Toucan Sam would be wearing this as a vest. It's tropical as far the colors go in the picture which does not inspire a western feel what would they be herding? Monkeys?

5.  Brown/ Gold Ikat Reversible 

I actually have very little complaints about this swatch, my one nit picky comment would be that it's only brown and cream. I was really looking for a fabric that would unite all my colors on one big western front, like a color stampede!

6. Ivory Paisley Jersey Print

Pretty, yes. Practical for me, no. 
The colors look to bright and that orange-y/red is so intense and not really the feel I'm shootin' for.
(cheesy western reference intended lol)

7. Blue Ikat Print

I love the colors and the overall pattern of this print buuuut, I think it's just so very clean and put together and so very very un-cowboy like. 

8. Beige/ Clay/ Mustard Ikat Velvet

My only concern about this would be the weight of the fabric I assume it would be very heavy.

9. Beige/ Clay/ Mustard Ikat Velvet

I have the same concerns about this fabric since its by the same designs and the fiber content is the same, also the mustard stripe that runs down the right side of the picture really sort of irks me in a way but I'm not sure why =//

So here I am panning for a nugget of printed fabric gold and all that keeps turning up is craptastic fools gold. 

On a side note how can you work with these two on your case all day always with the walk me, walk me, walk me, and the play with me, play with me, play with me.

Ugh.

I mean doesn't this scream high maintenance?

 Come on, just settle down a teensy bit.

the beginning of the end

Ok so this might not seem completely relevant to what the purpose of this blog is buuut, 

I'll get there I promise!

This is a sprinkle covered vanilla ice cream cone sent straight from the flotzie gods. It might be the most amazing thing ever, if you're ever in Shenandoah, VA you must stop by the Walmart parking lot and get one. It's one classy joint for sure.

This is the epic flotzies trailer for lack of a better word.

(Also referred to as the ultimate gypsy snack trailer, although it never leaves the Walmart parking lot)

(On a side note my computer keeps underlining flotzies with that mean little red squiggly line. It wants to change it to floozies which makes me giggle a teensy bit.)

Ok now to the part where it relates to my blog purpose. Shenandoah is this small town in rural virginia with a population of 2,335. It's home to all this civil war history not to mention it's absolutely gorgeous! 

Check out this place it's called Steven's Cottage. During the 1800's and the railroad boom it was a Shenandoah Land and Improvement Company.

The whole point of this Shenandoah spiel is it's name actually. It's name is Native American expression for "Beautiful Daughter of the Stars." My senior collection is inspired by cowboys and Indians (I know not exactly pc, but it's not meant to be offensive). 

These are some of the images I've found that are going in my process book. This array of images seems heavily on the Native American influence but it's actually more heavily focused on the cowboy/western influence. 


I'm really excited and inspired by these amazing pictures and I can't wait to continue working on my designs!


Thanks for reading.


-A