Thursday 7 July 2011

The Art of Living: Pattern, Part One

I have had a love and appreciation of pattern since a young age. We grew up with a colourful home full of patterns from many different sources and I clearly remember gazing at the designs and the moment of joy finding the repeat pattern in the Laura Ashley wallpaper, Liberty curtains or Moroccan rug.

My pattern passion is still strong, it's a hunger I have to feed. Therefore when I discovered the print & pattern blog a few years ago I was like a cat with catnip!

Print & Pattern is a website that celebrates the world of surface pattern design. Bowie Style is the pseudonym of the UK designer behind the blog.  Bowie brings together EVERYTHING with pattern and motifs - daily blogs may feature the latest offerings at Paperchase, the seasonal collection of a textile designer, or a profile on an illustrator, and much more besides.

WARNING: to those of you who haven't seen print & pattern yet...it's highly addictive!

printpattern.blogspot.com

Our Mama dressed us in an array of patterned clothing , including Clothkits and Liberty dresses. There has always been a family collection of fabrics, and most of the curtains and bedlinen still remain - spread around the homes of myself and my siblings.  My idea of shopping heaven is a fabric shop or a vintage market where I cannot resist a patterned piece of fabric for a future project.  It doesn't stop at fabric though as I am known to buy a particular CD, novel or notebook just because I'm drawn to the pattern that appears on the cover.

A regular blog stop for me is the Jane Foster blog.  Jane Foster is an illustrator who used to reside in Brighton, where I first discovered her work and bought some prints for Carla's girls - Jane Foster screenprints for sale here.  Jane now lives in Devon and designs for Clothkits as well as creating her own range of screenprints and fabric items.  Jane is a collector of vintage fabrics from the 50s, 60s and 70s as well as vintage children's fabric and Scandinavian fabric too. The blog brings together illustrations, pattern and designs, along with her thoughts and findings.  It's a wonderful read and visual treat:

janefosterblog.blogspot.com

My most recent blog discovery is Designer Jots, the blog by the Canadian Mum and Designer Carolyn Gavin.  Carolyn is the founder of Eco Jots, an eco-friendly stationery brand with lovely designs including  pattern notebooks

designerjots.blogspot.com

I hope you enjoy these blogs that I've shared with you, and it feeds your own pattern passion, or sparks a new love!

This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk

1 comment:

  1. I too grew up surrounded by fabrics and patterns and home made clothes were a must! My mum works for Laura Ashley and I still now use patterned pieces of wallpaper and fabrics to collage into my work! A life without pattern wouldn't be the same :) I love the Print and Pattern site always great to catch up on up and coming patterns and a good reference source - I agree it is Highly Addictive...Designer Jots is also one of my fav's - I love her designs! I am now off to check out Jane Foster as I haven't heard of her! Thanks for sharing...Have a great weekend x x x

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