We All Have to Start Somewhere

I have been working for a couple years now on finishing a fabric collection to pitch to art directors in various companies. There has been a lot of trial and error, experimentation, and redoing the same idea over and over. I'm finally to the point I'm proud of what I've made and trying to get all the finishing touches done before officially sending out my collection into the world.

I started this journey back in February of 2022 by taking the Immersion Course created by the amazing Bonnie Christine. I had never looked at Adobe Illustrator before her course and learned so much from her tutorials and classes. I've since dappled in it here and there but recently decided to really give it an honest effort.

My first collection is inspired by the beauty of a starry night sky. One of my favorite memories was one cool October evening spent outside with my husband and our four boys. We had a fire going in the firepit, folk music playing over the speaker, and I was swinging in our hammock swing on the porch I helped build. It was such a lovely time and ended with us laying on our trampoline looking at the stars, laughing, talking and cherishing the moment. It's the simple pleasures of life I want to bottle up and keep forever. This sentiment is what inspired my "Under the Stars" collection. I would love to see my patterns turned into a sleeping bag, hammock, sweatshirt or some other item to encourage more of the same memories.

In the process of making the collection, I tried watercolor, ink, and eventually a reduction block print to create one of the repeating patterns. Below is a section of that print.