New Festive Fabrics

New Festive Fabricshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phatsheeptextiles/5104727583/, originally uploaded by Phatsheep Textiles.

The cotton with my latest print designs arrived a few days ago and I'm really pleased with how they look.....now I just have to think of what I'm going to make with them!
Also they are now available for sale at Spoonflower along with a number of my other designs. Lately I've not had time to list fabrics on my Etsy site so I made the decision to make them available on Spoonflower for the meantime, it takes the pressure off me keeping my Etsy store stocked up but it means people can still buy the fabrics.

I had a great time at the knitting and Stitching show and I'll post about that soon once I edit my pics.

Autumn Crafting

Fabrics for a new quilthttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phatsheeptextiles/4998482326/, originally uploaded by Phatsheep Textiles.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse, lots of wind and wet, the nights are getting dark and Autumn is definately here. But its not all bad, its the time for a new series of Grand Designs, I can't even remember how many series of this programme there has been but I never tire of it!and excitingly its the start of the programme of nightclasses run here locally. This year I have signed up for a patchwork class so I can learn how to do it properly rather than just by reading books and guessing!
I have had my first class and learned a lot aready, I've been to the local craft shop and bought my fabric (we are going to make a quilt from start to finish) I'm excited about about getting stuck into this project and I'll be posting photos of my progress along the way....

New Fabric in the Etsy Shop.......at long last

After a very long blogging holiday I have finally managed minutes to sit down and write a post. I do hope to post again more regularly but family time is keeping me very busy at the moment.

I have for some time been meaning to get this upholstery weight fabric available to sell online, its been for sale in the bricks and mortar shop for several months now and has been selling well.

In the future I hope to have more of my designs printed onto this lovely cotton satin but that will have to wait a few months until I have some spare time to achieve that aim! In the meantime, if you are interested you can buy these two designs by the 1/2 metre from the Phatsheep Fabrics Etsy Shop.

I think this fabric would be fantastic for curtains or blinds in a kids bedroom, or a bright sunny kitchen.

News...

Once again its been a long time between posts, I've been busy with the shop, which is going well I'm pleased to say, and we spent the last week of June at the Flavour of Shetland Event on Victoria Pier, a great event this year, especially with the lovely hot weather.

I've managed to get meterage of cotton satin (upholstery weight fabric) in both the Croft House print and the Fair Isle Jumper print available for sale in the North Rock Gallery Shop and soon to be in the Etsy shop which has been sadly neglected over the past few weeks.

I'm looking forward to seeing what people make with the fabric I've sold so far and I'm aiming to make a blind for the new nursery in the next few weeks.....thats some more news I've not shared on the blog yet. Baby no2 is due to make an appearance at the end of August.

I'm desperately trying to build up stock now as I know there will be no time for sewing in the months after baby arrives, but its been hard to sit indoors when the sun has been shining and we've had a bit of a heatwave ( in Shetland terms), however the weather is back to normal again so back to the workshop for me...

Newish Flickr Group - Phatsheep Fabric Creations

I started up this Flickr group a while back and have been a bit shy about publicising it (mainly for fear that nobody would ever join it!!), but now that fabric sales have been going well I'd love to see what everybody makes with the fabrics they buy.

So if any of you reading this have made something with my fabrics I'd love to see it, and I'm sure there are a lot of other out there who would like to see it too. So please join and post your pics to the phatsheep fabric creations flickr group .

Also heres a print idea I'm working on at the moment, did the drawing ages ago but only just got round to making it into a potential print design over the weekend, I'm liking the retro colours lots.

Christmas birds included in Spoonflower competition....much excitement!

Firstly I should say that I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are still relaxing with friends and family, we did, very relaxing, lots of lovely presents and lovely food....

I wasn't intending to post again until 2009 but I got an exciting e-mail last night from the people at Spoonflower to let me know that my Christmas birds fabric is one of the 4 fabrics in their weekly design competition.

I'm sure its a bit late for people to be thinking about Christmas fabrics but maybe some people are thinking ahead to crafting in 2009? Anyway I would be really grateful if you could take the time to check out the competition here Spoonflower Competition and maybe add a little vote for my birds:)

Its very exciting for my fabric to be selected amongst so many amazing spoonflower designs, a very good Christmas present.

New Purse Design New Fabric Design Too

Clutch purse using new spoonflower Fabrichttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phatsheeptextiles/2825666234/, originally uploaded by Phatsheep Textiles.

Heres a new purse idea, looks quite cute I think, but I'm especially pleased with the new printed fabric.
Its one of a series of new designs I've been working on and this is made using the first fabric swatch I received from Spoonflower.

I'm really pleased with how the designs have printed on the fabric and so I will soon be able to do something I've been working towards for a few months, Offer my fabrics for sale - very exciting!!

I've ordered up some meterage and hope to be able to sell Fat Quarters via my new etsy shop in a few weeks. I decided it would be best to keep my existing products seperate from my fabric sales so the existing shop doesn't get in a muddle, I can't wait to start selling these fabrics and see what people make with them.

Exciting Parcels

The other day I received a lovely parcel in the mail, I'd signed up to take part in the melly and me Fabric swap and was paired with a lovely lady in Australia who sent me all of this fabric (and lots more that didn't fit in the photo!):

It was great to get all these fabrics from so far away and they are very different from the fabrics I have collected myself so very inspirational, I am really looking forward to having the time to sit down and make a start on a patchwork blanket using all these lovely scraps.

All this is really well timed because a day later my new sewing machine was delivered. It took a while to decide on what model to buy but I settled for the Brother ES 2400 because my previous sewing machine and knitting mahine are both brothers and have served me well.

So now I have no excuse not to get on and be creative!

Latest Idea - Fabric Badges

I've been wondering what to do with all the lovely scraps of material I have stored in my cupboards and i've also been really interested in trying out badge making as I think little badges are such a cute accessory. So I bought a badge maker and after a great afternoon experimenting I came up with these which are now for sale in the PhatSheep Etsy Shop, hope they sell as I can't wait to make some more!

One of my bags is was chosen by Etsy User Gekkokamen to feature in their Treasury and its made it onto the front page of Etsy..Yay!!

Its one of my Leaf Print Bags, Its a print I did a while ago and I'd pretty much decided to discontinue it......now I'm not so sure, this print has had a lot of interest on Etsy so maybe I should look into using it on some of my other homware products what do you think?