swatch makers

I was surprised when I looked that I haven't mentioned Jesse Breytenbach, her inspiring Jezzeblog and her Etsy shops Jezze and Jezzeprints before. She has appeared on these pages though, in my treasury that recently made the front page of Etsy.
Her blog is one I really enjoy reading. Along with friend 'Skinny Laminx' her work covers a range of materials and disciplines. She is one of those multi-talented people that manages to make beautiful things in a variety of media.
The other day she blogged about her idea to do a Swatch Swap, swapping 20cm square hand printed fabric with other people, around the world, which she's going to use to make a quilt. I've signed up, along with a roll call of talented and enthusiastic artists and crafters, some who say they haven't printed fabric before. What great inspiration and motivation, and at that size you can afford to experiment. So if you want to do some fabric printing and join in to swap for some of Jesse's beautiful block printed fabrics, sign up! I can't wait to get a swatch of this in my mailbox (photos above and below).


I'm trying to do and learn as much as I can about fabric design at the moment so I was also delighted to see that Jessica (from another of my must read blogs How About Orange) has posted about the way she came to be a fabric designer and some of her method (pic below). Lots of great information and her link to an Illustrator tutorial builds on the simple handmade repeat ideas from Julia Rothman that I posted earlier.


Jessica also mentions Spoonflower, which I first heard of on Poppytalk. This new company prints custom fabric designs from small swatch sizes up. At the moment it is in Beta and you have to wait for an invitation before you can use the service. I put my name on the waiting list about three seconds after I heard about it. What a great way to trial designs or get small print runs. I will be interested to see prices and shipping costs. I do know they will send internationally which is great news.

Anyway, lots of resources and inspiration for those of us aspiring to make some cloth!! If anyone knows of more good fabric design/make resources I'd love to hear about it.