Kombi Van calligram and fabric collection

May I present... my Kombi Van Kalligram!

I can hardly believe it, but it's been more than three years since I made my last calligrams (in February 2013, the seahorse, platypus, mouse and crocodile). I still get lots of visitors to this blog who are searching for 'calligram', so I hope you all like this one!



As long-time readers of this blog know, I love Kombi Vans (VW buses / campervans) and I can't believe I didn't think of making a Kombi Van Kalligram before! I uploaded the design to Spoonflower and had it printed in eight different colourways. The fabric sampler arrived today:



Apart from the Kalligrams I also added some hand-drawn Kombi Vans to my collection. I really like this one:



And this one:



Well, I like them all really!

I have made the whole Kombi Van collection available for sale as fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap. Now to make some fun stuff with the fabric!

New calligrams!

It's been on my to-do list for a very long time: draw some new calligrams. And finally I did, and had them made into thermofax screens. They arrived this afternoon, just when I had to go and pick up the kids :-(. When their homework was done and they were playing on the Wii I couldn't resist making a few quick prints. I'm very happy with the seahorse and the platypus, that fascinating Australian animal!



The mouse was a request from a friend. I love his tail ;-).



What do you think of the crocodile?



I also had this drawing made into a thermofax screen:



I can see so many possibilities with this one!

All these designs are also available on Spoonflower, for printing on fabric, wallpaper or as a wall decal. There is also a Shark Calligram design, that I haven't had made into a thermofax screen (yet):



The World Map design is available in six colourways.



Last but not least: Happy Valentine's Day! It's almost over here in Oz, and we (hubby and me) don't 'do' V-day anyway... but here is something you might like to pass on to your Valentine:

Copy and paste the following on Google:

(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

;-)

Snug-a-licious!

Last Saturday a big box was delivered on our deck... and in it were three Snugs!



You may remember that I mentioned in March 2011 that I was designing some new animal calligrams that might end up on children's pillows... It's taken a while, but Suzie from Snug-a-licious has created a gorgeous range of baby and children's products, featuring my calligrams. I am very proud to have been involved in this!



Suzie kindly sent each of my boys a Snug - they are lovely soft blankets that fold into a pillow, beautifully made and finished;





The boys love them - thanks Suzie!



Snug-a-licious also has lovely sleepwear and playwear for littlies - sadly, my boys are too big, but I think I know what their new cousin (due in January 2013) will get from the rellies in Oz... (aside from a quilt, of course!) These Hippo PJs are just too cute!

Birthdays and more

Last week was a terribly busy one - my baby turned six, I turned forty-something, it was the last week of school with Letterland Day for the Preppies, on the weekend we had Robbie's Olympic birthday party, and today and tomorrow my eldest son is competing at the Gymnastics State and National Club Championships in Caloundra (guess who's chauffeuring). I got a lovely, handmade birthday present: this donut pincushion from my friend Kate (and a new smartphone to Instagram it with, yay!).



It has been getting quite warm here in Brisbane in the last few days, which inspired me to make another Burlap Beach Pillow. And I put a kookaburra in a hoop:



On Wednesday we are going to our caravan at Wooyung Beach for a short holiday. I am looking forward to it soooo much! See you next week :-).

Etsyversary

Today is the first anniversary of my Blue Jacaranda shop on Etsy! It's been a great year and I am looking forward to the next one. To celebrate I am offering a 20% discount on all items in my shop - just use the coupon code ETSYVERSARY at check-out.



The stretched burlap print has been added to the shop yesterday and the bicycle word art print in-a-hoop today. The other hoop art prints will be added tomorrow - now that this business is my main source of income, I am planning to add a new item every day.

New items in the shop

Yesterday I made this colourful pencil roll, using two swatches of Spoonflower fabric that I designed: Colourful Pencils for the outside and Colour for the inside. I love how it turned out! It's up for sale in my Etsy shop now; you can find it here.



I also made this Dutch Houses business card holder, which will be added to the shop soon:



Today I did a screen printing session. The Narwhal is now available as a stretched print:



While I was printing I suddenly had a brain wave - what about printing on the legs of discarded jeans?



It looked great so I quickly got some more fabric and screens:




These prints will be made into art cards for Reverse Garbage. Remember the set of burlap cards I made for their gift shop, Reverse Emporium? I hadn't heard anything from them so assumed there was no interest... But when we came home from Europe there was a letter telling me that all my cards had been sold and could I please make some more!! Yes, sure! :-)

I am thinking of switching to using only recycled fabric for my screen printed items and quilts... However, I still have lots of commercial fabrics that I need to use up first, so maybe I'll just start a 'line' of upcycled items. Would love to hear your thoughts!

New: Flag Cards!

When I was making my Country Quilts for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group, I thought it might be a good idea to make fabric postcards in the colours of various national flags. I finally followed up on that thought and here are the first two Flag Cards: the Netherlands (of course) and Ireland.



I've added them to my Etsy shop, thinking they might be just the thing for your Irish grandmother or to announce a city trip to Amsterdam to your beloved!

Flag Cards for France, Germany and Italy will follow soon, and after that I hope to add more countries. It's fun to make these cards and a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. I am not a hoarder but I do have trouble throwing away scraps of my precious quilting fabrics - especially the handdyed ones!



I didn't do any quilting on my day off, because I had a custom order - a mum of two boys in California asked me to do this series of three calligram cards for her sons' room. What a lovely idea that my creations will be hanging there, on the other side of the world, soon!

A busy week

It has been a busy week here, with ups and downs. The biggest 'up' was an email from Spoonflower, letting me know that my Dutch Houses fabric was chosen to feature in The Nate Berkus Show! Initially this didn't mean anything to me, but after some googling I discovered that Nate Berkus is a very famous American interior designer who has his own TV show. Okay... The episode was taped last Tuesday and will be aired in May. The Spoonflower people have promised to send me a link to the video online and of course I will share it with you! ;-)

It was my oldest son's 9th birthday on Thursday, so that kept me busy, and I have been writing an article for a magazine (!) which took up a lot of my time. Will tell you more soon!

Today I had to come home from work early to pick up my youngest from school, as he had a headache and was waiting for me on a bed in the school office... That was a 'down' but being home early meant I could add a new line to my Etsy shop, which I had been planning to do for a while: Printable Art.



A few of my calligrams are now available as PDF files that you can download and print at home (or in a print shop), and frame, or use as cards, birthday invitations etc. At this moment the Robot, Dolphin, Elephant and Flamingo are available but I will be adding more in the next few days.



Coming home today I found a parcel waiting for me... and in it was this gorgeous bag, that looks like a cute handbag but is in fact a Ketti Camera Bag! As you know I love to take my beloved DSLR everywhere, but not in the ugly black camera bag that I got for free when I bought it... Now here is a camera bag that you can be seen with!

(talking about cameras, I put a new photo on the photoblog and I would love it if you would go and see it!)

We have a busy weekend coming up, with gymnastics training, friends coming over and two birthday parties... But I hope to have some time to play with fabric, thread and maybe even paint!

Red Work

The other day I saw some pictures of redwork quilts and I suddenly thought that printing my designs in red ink on white fabric might be a good idea... So on Monday night I did a massive screen printing session at the kitchen table (made 41 prints!) and yesterday at night (I work on Monday and Tuesday) I made a lot of Art Cards...



Today I was at home with the boys (it's the last week of the summer holidays here) and between gymnastics and the library managed to add them to my Etsy shop.



I also made some stretched prints:



... and a red-on-white Robot Calligram t-shirt! (the white-on-red Robot Calligram t-shirt is here)



This Dutch Houses ACEO (ATC) sold within 2 hours of adding it to the shop - wow! (I have added a new one, so it is for sale again)



I will be adding some of these items to the MadeIt shop as well in the next few days, but for now I am concentrating on my Etsy shop as I have almost reached the magic number of 100 items! I am already noticing an increase in sales - I have been to the post office five times in the last eight days!

I've got mail!

Today I received a parcel... In it was this gorgeous book (available for sale here).
And in the book...



The boys were very excited to see this quilt (that hangs in our living room) in a book!



I was supposed to be back at work today, but since our babysit is sick and it's still the school holidays, I had to stay at home. No problem! I got Robbie to model his Robot Calligram t-shirt and added it to my Blue Jacaranda shops:

Robbie's Alphabet Calligram Quilt

Finally finished: the Alphabet Calligram Quilt I first mentioned in May 2010 and planned to make for Robbie's 4th birthday. Here is the proud owner (who turned 5 in September):



It has 26 calligrams, one for each letter in the alphabet. I designed them all myself and had them printed on fabric at Spoonflower. The fabrics are for sale here (Calligrammar collection) and here (Calligrammar 2 collection). I have had quite a few of the calligram designs made into thermofax screens which I use to make art cards and stretched prints (and soon t-shirts as well, I hope) for my Blue Jacaranda shops on MadeIt and Etsy.



I finished the quilt with a thin black binding. I think I will add Robbie's name, the name of the quilt and the date to the empty green squares at the bottom, next to the Zebra.

Robbie loves his quilt! But I realised once again that I really do not enjoy making bed-sized quilts (even if it is a small bed!) so this definitely will be the last large quilt in a long time!

I have done some screen printing yesterday with an exciting new design which I hope to show you soon...

To be continued!

Red (and black) Robots

I did a screen printing session today - lots of fabric for art cards and stretched prints. I also printed my Robot Calligram Design on a red t-shirt for my middle son, who has Letterland Day at school next week. You may remember the Zebra pants I made for him and his brother in 2010 - this time he wants to be Red Robot. Of course I printed t-shirts for his brothers as well :-).

Back from the retreat

I am back from the quilting retreat organised by Julie - it was a lovely weekend, thanks Julie!

The venue was great - Edmund Park in Thornton, in the beautiful Lockyer Valley region. The food was great too, and the cook very cute ;-).

This was the view from the deck where we had our meals:



And what did I do? Well, I was a bit disorganized - I finished quilting the Alphabet Calligram Quilt (see first photo) but forgot to bring fabric for the binding. I also finished quilting a small ice skating quilt but forgot the fabric for the facing... I sandwiched the printed fabric I showed you in the last posting, but spend all Saturday and today quilting the quilt for the Beneath the Southern Sky exhibition. I finished it just in time and now I only have to do the facing. I won't show it here yet though as I am not sure if that is allowed. I will show you the Calligram Quilt and ice-skating quilt soon!

To make up for the lack of quilt photos here are a few other photos I took this weekend. There were lots of wallabies:



The whole complex, with gorgeous jacaranda tree:



I love how the container lids have the same colour as the jacaranda flowers!



The sun shining on the deck:



A gorgeous little flower:



Purple seems to be the colour of the weekend!



And last but not least - on Friday we visited a Christmas Craft Mmarket in Gatton, where they had this sign:



LOL!