Erica's Stitches

Connecting Threads is having a fabric design contest so I decided to try designing fabric. It's easy to come up with ideas but hard for me to get them into the computer. The first design I used PCStitch, cross-stitch design software to come up with the jpeg.  It has a tiled appearance because of that but it is an interesting effect.  I can easily imagine a whole line of fabrics with this look.  This design is on page one of the Geometric/Decorative category . For my next design I experimented with Photoshop.   It is on page 3 of the Flowers category . It's been fun dreaming about being a fabric designer but there were so many beautiful designs submitted and they are all getting more votes then mine. I have more ideas and wish I could submit again knowing more about what to expect and how to generate the designs.  So, go out there and vote for your favorites so they will run the competition again.

I've been a member of Stitchmap for a while and I finally got to take my first class in Fabric Weaving.  I've written classes and mentored, but this was my first chance to relax and take a class.  And I also won my first challenge (which is detailed in their blog). I went overboard and made 3 different woven fabrics and three journal covers.  I didn't plan on it.  It just happened.  The directions say to use batiks so I started with batiks.  But, there were some prints I liked too, so I decided to do one with a print too. So I started thinking about why we were using batiks.  Probably because they are more tightly woven and shouldn't fray as much and probably the designs on many prints would be lost after the weaving.  Thinking about fraying fabrics reminded me of homespun plaids.  After that, I just had to try one with plaids to see what would happen.  In reality, they frayed as much as the batiks and it wasn't an issue (I did use...