Fabric Design

My ‘Lemonade Bubbles’ fabric was featured recently in this sunny-themed piece on Michelle Bartholomew’s Half Square Headlines site. It’s fabric number 4 below. Thanks, Michelle! (You can find Michelle’s blog here.)

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.”

-Walt Whitman

‘Lemonade Bubbles’, like all my fabrics, is available from Spoonflower (www.spoonflower.com). To find me, you need to choose ‘Designer‘ in the search options and put amanda_jane_textiles in the search box. Or just click here.

Spoonflower head office is based in America, so American readers can order from there and pay in dollars. However, there is now a Berlin office, so you can order within Europe and can pay in Pounds sterling or in Euros.

Spoonflower prints on a huge range of fibres and fabric as you can see from the list below:

Knit

Performance Piqué

Performance Knit

Modern Jersey

Cotton Spandex Jersey

Minky

Organic Cotton Knit Ultra

Fleece

Sport Lycra

Woven

Basic Cotton Ultra

Satin

Kona® Cotton Ultra

Cotton Poplin Ultra

Poly Crepe de Chine

Silky Faille

Lightweight Cotton Twill

Organic Cotton Sateen Ultra

Linen Cotton Canvas Ultra

Eco Canvas

Heavy Cotton Twill

Faux Suede

Silk Crepe de Chine

Performance

Performance Piqué

Performance Knit

Sport Lycra

Any design can be printed on any fabric. I currently have over a hundred designs available.

You can also order wallpaper or gifwrap from the site.

Here are a few more yellow-based Amanda Jane Textiles designs:

Little Leaf Beach Ball Mama Camel and baby

One of my favourites is ‘Cornish Sandcastles’ because it reminds me of holidays in Cornwall with my family:

This is the image used for the July page of my 2017 calendar. I am sending the pages out (as a PDF) a month at a time to anyone who reads this and would like one. Fill in the form below and I will send one out to you for July and then a page for each remaining month of this year.

We made the decision to get married in a bluebell wood, many moons ago, so the wild bluebell has fond associations for me. I grew up in Buckinghamshire, a county of England that was once nicknamed ‘Beechy Bucks’ because of its extensive beech woods. There was a beech wood opposite our house and each year in Spring the woodland floor was carpeted with bluebells. It was on a visit home as an adult that the matrimonial plans were made, so this flower is special.

I have been noticing bluebells in the city, right in the heart of Durham. This one (a cultivated variety) has a wide-open flower shape.

Bluebells_in_the_city[1]

The wild variety of bluebell is rather different in shape and in colour. It has a narrow bell of a deep blue-purple colour.

Bluebell plant.JPG

I’d heard of some bluebell woods near where we live now, so last weekend we set off to find them and were not disappointed:

Bluebell wood.JPG

There are a few bluebells growing wild around the cricket ground in our village so I picked a few (a very few) and spent some time drawing and painting them. You have to work quickly as they droop in captivity and are best enjoyed in the wild.

I did a spot of research on butterflies, in order to determine which species feed on bluebells and discovered that the Large British White is a candidate. This particular butterfly is unloved by gardeners because it is a great destroyer of cabbages! Nothing can detract, however, from their beautiful markings. They have a dusting of blue on the white of their wings, which also have charcoal grey spots and borders.

This watercolour painting led to a fabric design on a background of pale spring green. The proof of the fabric has just arrived in the post today, so the fabric is now for sale (click here to see it).

Butterflies and Bluebells.JPG

While I am writing about woodlands, I will also mention last week’s design, this time featuring blackberries. Once again, this brings back strong childhood memories: we used to go to the margins of those same beech woods to collect blackberries in baskets lined with newspaper. As a teenager I used to make blackberry and apple jelly, still one of my favourite foods. This is the design I created. Click here to find the fabric.

And as for other signs of Spring, which tends to arrive late in the North-East of England, I have been enjoying seeing leaf buds opening on the horse-chestnut trees:

and cherry blossom on a tree near Durham station. Lovely May!