Apostrophe - competition to have your design on coffee cups

I met up with the very lovely Jo Go, who I met on my MA this week. She had seen that Apostrophe - a boutique cafe chain in London - are looking for a designer to come up with a winter design for their take away coffee cups. So she'd contacted me to ask whether I'd be interested in entering.

Going to have to get my skates on and come up with some designs as the competition closes on 16th August.

If you want to enter yourself the details are here!

Cyanotype printing

So I have been investigating a very old fashioned way of printing fabric.

Cyanotype printing is a photographic technique where you treat the fabric with light reactive chemicals and then once it has dried it will turn the most amazing blue when it reacts with light. If you place objects on the fabric when it is exposed you can create the most amazing ghostly shapes, almost fossil like, printed on the fabric.

Anna Atkins was one of the first pioneers of this technique, using it on paper, to produce a stunning catalogue of seaweeds back in the 1800s.

V&A

The V&A have a collection of her photographs on their website if you follow the link above.

I went down to the Thames and collected lots of seed heads which I will attempt to expose on to fabric next week. Very very excited!

Cushions

A selection of cushions that I am selling at All I want for Xmas at Brick Lane.

They are all original designs (by me!) and are filled with soft duck feathers so are so super squishy and lovely to well cushion your self with.

What an Albert!

This design is based on the albert memorial in Hyde park. It's a digital print on soft, brushed cotton and measures 38cm by 35cm. Price £25 (including duck feather cushion pad)

Batty Bikes. Based on a drawing I did of bicycle gears this hand silk screened design uses 3 colours to create layers and depth and is printed on textured cotton. It measures 35cm by 35cm and costs £20.

Confetti Collectors. Taken from the project I did with Transport for London the design confetti collectors has quite a back story. The Confetti collectors were poorly paid women and children who counted the punched tokens from bus tickets (the confetti) to ensure that the conductor submitted the correct amount of takings to tickets punched. I used the image of the punched hole along with lines to give a sense of movement and journeys made. The design is digitally printed onto soft cotton twill measures 35cm by 35cm and costs £25.

more new fabrics

Just got some new fabrics back from the printers. Here they are laid out across my bed. There's two colourways here; dark navy and white. I'm really pleased with them and will be turning them into cushions soon.

Stop press!

On sunday whilst I was busy selling on the stall I was approached by a lady with the most enormous camera lens and asked whether i'd mind having my photo being taken with my 'what an albert' cushions. Of course I didn't (although i really do need to practice smiling).

Click here to view blog

Barbara Chandler who is a photographer and journalist writes a blog featuring interesting design and her photography.

Thanks so much for featuring me Barbara

New fabrics - la purple collection

When I graduated my friend Anne-Marie gave me the most beautiful bunch of purple Irises. There is something about flowers but I can't throw them away once they've died. I keep them whilst their heads fall off, their skins dry up and the petals darken and fade. Anyway these Irises sat beside my bed slowly curling up and became the starting inspiration for these new fabrics. I liked how the petals had either darkened so deeply or faded like ghosts. Playing around with the colours and shapes I came up with this wharpped design which lead to a little play around with circles. I do love my circles...

All I want for Xmas - Brick Lane Christmas Market

From 26th November until 20th December I will be selling my textiles at the All I want for Xmas Market in Brick Lane. Based on the first floor in T1 it's a specialist designer makers market.

I am sharing a stall with Neil Simmons who makes vases and lamps (shown below). I've made some beautiful hair bands which I'm selling for £4 and act as fascinators or corsages for the hair! I love them and have been wearing two at once.

Hours that the market is on are

Thursday evenings 5-9

Friday afternoons 12-6

Saturday all day 10-6

Sunday all day 10-6

I'm running the stall on Thursday nights and at the weekend so do come along and say hello. The cushions are filled with duck feathers and are adorably soft.