Twirling and Swirling

I got a little side-tracked with my log cabin design, working up two new color combinations and then applying some distortions in photoshop. With all the variations I think I will be well over the 30 swatches that I need to place my next Spoonflower sampler order, so I will be able to place the order tonight.

The more I look at these the more I like them. I did them fast, almost without thinking. Never agonized. Peak art experience.

Log Cabin Revisited

There is something about this Log Cabin design that fascinates me--enough to keep making new versions. Here are two "Tiles" arrangements which have been added to Spoonflower.

I need to keep in mind the color trends for 2012. I've certainly been holding up my end in the "tangerine" department.

Ripple No. 1 (Log Cabin Collection)

Ripple No. 1 (Log Cabin Collection) in orange. Coming soon to Spoonflower.

Fabric Design - Filter Tangent

Yesterday I spent some time exploring the Filters available in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. I used a scan of a log cabin design that I created by pasting together little squares of fabric. I repeated and rotated the image to form a block

to which I applied various Filters at random. The examples below illustrate application of the Artistic filter called Cutout. (I've used this one before on my Perfect Square design.) Different results can be achieved through the manipulation of three variables: levels, edge simplicity, and edge fidelity.

Below is an example of another Artistic filter called Plastic Wrap:

And this next one is Posterization:

I've lost track of how I achieved the last one, but here are a few more surface treatments I can still identify:

Then there are applications which dramatically distort the image, affecting more than just the surface character of the design

like Ripple (above) or Pinch (below). The possibilities are endless!

Cubist Log Cabin

I found this little fabric collage test nestled inside a curio cabinet out in the gallery (where I've created an amazing mess in the process of getting ready for the bead season). It is one of my earliest pieces. I remember being so excited that I could use my cotton fabric in collage.

Here it is scanned, rotated, and repeated with a dark gray border. A real sewn version would be divine but I was able to do this digital version so much quicker!