Lin sans l'Autre

Textile Design Class

Welcome back to my adventures,

After feeling "rejected" several times (I know that is a strong word, but that is how I felt back then), I decided to take it differently. If the fabric editing companies showed interest in my work, it was probably because what I was doing was good. My designs were based on my cross stitch, so maybe the "pixel" aspect that my fabric might have been the problem.

I knew that designers were using Illustrator as a designing tool, I had no idea how it worked, so the best idea was to take classes to learn how to use it. Well the price for just a week of training was expensive, and I wasn't even sure that I would learn what I need to design my fabric. One day as I was reading a friend's facebook page (Sandrine Franchet), she talked about an online class called Lignes & Formation, they had a topic called Textile Design, contacted them, turned out they used Illustrator in their classes. So without much ado, I registered for a 3 year class for 2000 euros.

And there I was on a 3 year journey of doing homework and turning it in (sending it by the post) to be graded by teachers.

It was a lot of work, but I finished it just a few days before the deadline and got my score of 16.4 over 20. I was really proud of my work, and really happy as I could now use Illustrator much more easily.

All that work was very useful for me as it inspired some new designs, that didn't have that "pixel" aspect anymore as I was drawing directly on my screen with a Wacom tablet.

To give my presentation a little extra touch, I went on Pinterest to find silhouettes that I "dressed" with my fabric!!

 

I went back to Quilt Market last year but only promises came out of it and no follow up.

So I have decided to work on my own, to give directly to my followers my work through websites such as Society6 and Spoonflower.

To edit my books myself by having them printed and selling them on fairs. And my futur project being online courses of my Designing a Quilt 101.

I'll tell you more next week on how I came up to make my book Designing a Quilt.

Emmanuelle

PS: you are going to love this week's PDF, to work in the patchwork business you need tools, those tools are called notions, and I am giving you a detailed list of all the notions I just love to use, what I think about them and what companies I use. (But please remember that if you wish to be on my Special People List, you need to click here if you haven't done so on the previous posts).

Thank you

Emmanuelle

Designing fabrics

Hello Everybody,

This week I want to tell you about designing fabric.

As a quilt designer, at one point I really wanted to go one step beyond and design the next best thing which was fabric. Since I had been designing cross stitch patterns, I used those drawings to build up a collection. Got to go to Quilt Market in 2010 and presented my work to different companies. My luck struck when Lecien, a Japanese company, which got interested in my work and accepted to edit a collection. 

It was called "La Petite Mercerie":

My collection was made up of 21 bolts in the red, blue and brown tones.

I was featured on their list of designers on their website.

I was so proud of having a collection, I started working on the second one with Nireko, unfortunately the tsunami occurred and changed Lecien's strategy, they decided to only work with "in-house designers", so my second collection never got to come out.

This set back didn't stop me, I decided to work again on several collections and went back to the Quilt Market in Pittsburgh in 2014 to present my work. I was lucky once again to meet with Clothworks that decided to launch a collection with me called "Maison & Jardin".

Here are the videos I made, the first one was when I received the document used by the sales representatives to go around the shops to present the collection, and the second video are the strike offs that I received. (sorry both videos are in French, but you get to see the collection in full).

 

 

As I was waiting for the bolts to arrive at my house as I had a deadline to turn in a quilt for the French patchwork magazine "La Pratique du Patchwork", I called Clotchworks to find out why the bolts were taking so long to arrive, they finally told me they had cancelled the collection. And that was it, no other explanation on why after being all over their website, being on the front page of the biggest distributor Ee Schenck Co, they had just decided to cancel my work.

The feeling I had that evening was terrible. I was so sad. 

I decided a few weeks later that I wouldn't give up, so once again went back to the Quilt Market, went to Minneapolis in 2015, showed my work to Red Rooster, they chose the collection they wanted to work with, I came back to France, made all the changes they asked for, I worked all summer on the strike offs, and it all just stopped all of a sudden, they didn't reply to my emails, no news. Once again all that work for nothing.

In 2018, I gave one more shot, went the Quilt Market in Houston, went from one desk to another of all the fabric companies, showing my work, talking passionately about what I did and who I was. Met with Art Gallery Fabrics, she told me she loved France and would love working with me, told me what to work on, but guess what, she never answered my mails.

So what did I do?

I will tell you all about it next week!!

PS: this weeks block of Mini Quilt Fun is here: PDF,

But a little extra for you, here is the Lecien PDF of my collection "La Petit Mercerie" with the pattern that was available on their website back then.

If you wish to be on my list of special people and receive information about patchwork, quilts, upcoming events, or upcoming live videos on Instagram, then please click here .

Traditional Blocks

Hello my friends,

Continuing on telling you about making blocks with templates.

As you might have noticed, block sets have specific sizes (all my examples are based on Marti Michell templates),

if you look up close Marti Michell's set base which include squares, triangles and quarter triangles have different sizes:

Set A is a set base of 3 inches

Set B is a set base of 4 inches

Set L is a 12 inches for a 7 patch

Set M is a 12 inches for a 5 patch

Set N is a set base of 1 inch

Set Q is a set base of 2 1/2 inches

Set S is a 6 inches for a 5 patch (compatible with Set M)

Set T is a set base of 5 inches

My advice when using templates is to determine what size you need your block to mesure, in order to choose your templates.

Notice that when a template is a multiple in size with an other template they are compatible: Set M allows you to make a 5 patch block measuring 12 inches, and Set S allows you to make a 5 patch block measuring 6 inches. A 6 inch block is the half of a 12 inch block (nothing complicated about that right!!), so those two sets are compatible, you will just need to make 4 blocks with set S that will be the same size as 1 block with Set M.

Another example: Set B has a base of 4 inches, if you make a 3 patch block, it will measure 12 inches. You can also use it with the above blocks.

You will have a 12 inch 3 patch block (made with Set B)

you will have a 12 inch 7 patch block (made with Set M)

you will have a 12 inch 10 patch block (made with Set S) -> if you you don't understand the "10 patch block", it is just that a 5 patch block measures 6 inches, so if you want 12 inches (6 inches x 2) you will need 2 x 5 patch block (= 10 patch block).

If all this is giving you a headache, I am very sorry.

I made some videos on how to use these templates (some are only in French - guess your headache is even worse now!!), you can have a look on how I play with the shapes to make different squares.

 

 

Turns out that Marti Michell has a template to make 12 inch houses, so they are compatible with the Set M (video still in French - that headache is still there, kind of figures, French is not an easy language to understand!!)

 

 

One last video on the Set S that I had only made once again in French!!

 

When you use templates, you have to keep in mind that you can't make any type of blocks,

if you have a 4 patch block design and a 5 patch block design, the end size will not be compatible if you use the same template set, in order for those two blocks to measure the same, you will have to use to different templates.

Next week I will tell you about my experience in Designing Fabrics.

Manou

PS: Here is another block to work with for the  Mini Quilt Fun, just click here to download your free PDF.

 

Important information:

As of May 2018, the EU has installed a law on soliciting emails. When I offer to download a freebie, you enter your mail, that allows me (as I mentioned on my blog post last week) to know how many people downloaded my PDF.

This time I'm asking you to click here and give me your name and email address so I can send you information about my activities in the fabric / patchwork / quilt industry, there will also be information about events, classes, courses or online appearances that I will be doing, there will be follow ups on what I'm up to.

I would like to be clear on my intentions, that by clicking here you accept to be part of my list of special people in the duration of my Alice and Co Designs activities.

Please note that if you wish to unsubscribe from my email list, you can do so anytime. But if you wish to receive information from my business Alice and Co Designs, please click here, you allow me to send you emails when ever I need to let you know of an event or of offers that I have related to my patchwork / quilt activities. So if you agree please click here you will join my special people list and receive information about patchwork, quilts, and up coming events as well as my upcoming live videos on Instagram.

Thank you

Emmanuelle

Traditional Quilts / Blocks

Hello everybody,

What do I call traditional quilts?

I call traditional quilts, quilts made out of squares that are geometrical, made of shapes such as squares, rectangles, triangles, most were given names to make it easier to recognize.

The farmer's wife quilt

To make these shapes you can either draw them on a piece of paper, cut the paper template, trace it on a fabric, add a seam allowance of a quarter inch and then piece the fabrics together. That is how I started 30 years ago!!

A few years after that, I started using plastic templates, there are many available on the market, my favorite ones are the Marti Michell templates.

I like the fact that they are thick, so when you slide the rotary cutter against the side you will avoid slipping and cutting yourself, and I also like the special corners, very useful especially for the triangles.

I made lots of videos on youtube using the templates and showing how accurate they are for the intersections.

 

The first video was only in French, as I wanted to present the templates to the French ladies.

The three following videos are in French and English (there is a banner at the bottom to indicate when I am speaking English).

 

 

I have been designing quilts with "traditional blocks" motifs:

 

This is my five patch design.

There are many possibilities when using the "traditional blocks":

I really enjoyed playing with the basic shapes (squares, triangles), and also other shapes such as trapeze, kite and pyramid.

But working with templates has one condition, it is that a template has a set size and you need to know something about blocks to use them properly.

I will tell you all about that next week.

manou

PS: Here is another block to work with for the Mini Quilt Fun, just click on the link, type in your name and mail and you will get the document immediately, the purpose of not accessing the PDF straight away is that it allows me to have statistics on how many people were interested by my document : PDF