Cutout Cuties Contest

Life has been a bit crazy around here of late for reasons which I am not able to divulge just yet, but very soon! Aside from the craziness about things I can't talk about, there are other things that have added to the busyness that I can talk about and am so excited for! 

Once the biggest and most exciting contest to hit Spoonflower was announced, I set to work designing. If you are not a member of the Spooniverse, a very exciting chance to have your designs licensed by Michael Miller Fabrics was announced - this little contest is called Project Selvage and is an amazing opportunity for an undiscovered fabric designer. I'm really hoping it's me!!! (as are a bunch of my other uber-taleneted Spoonflower buddies)

It is an amazing option to have your work seen especially as someone who doesn't live in a big city where one of these fabric manufacturers is located or you don't live right next door to the Houston Quilt Market (neither of which applies to me). I've dreamt of having my designs on display in my meticulously decorated booth at Market just down the aisle from my hero, Amy Butler. I haven't quite made it to the point of creating a scale model of what my booth would look like, bit I think I'm close!

Anyhoo..... back to the contest. The theme for the designs is Baby Boy and the entries are starting to flood in! The deadline for entries is March 24 and you begin by entering one initial design. For about the next week, the wonderful people from Spoonflower and Michael Miller will be perusing all the submitted designs and narrowing the field down to 75 and then the voting opens up to the general public. The top 10 vote-getters then put together 5 more designs to complement their initial entry and then the voting continues again until the winner is chosen and becomes a Michael Miller designer! Once that happens, the winner creates a Baby Girl collection to coordinate with their boy collection and then it's off to quilt market!

So once this little contest was announced about two weeks ago I became one with my computer for a solid week as I set to creating my designs because, as you see, I designed both my entire boy and girl collections, plus a few more pieces! I had visions for the kind of line that could grow with the baby by taking out the most baby-like fabrics and supplementing them with the complementary designs. I also wanted to create something that was more clever than cutesy and I hope my little rows of paper cutout boys do just that as that is the fabric I've entered into the contest.

Now I'm onto baby quilt designs that will use the fabrics I've designed. Last night I was sketching baby mobile designs that can become little stuffed cutout dolls once the baby is past the mobile stage. I've got other plans and ideas that just haven't made it onto paper quite yet, but they will! In the midst of my sketching, I keep stalking my Spoonflower account to see if my samples of my designs have been printed and shipped yet and once they have, I'll be planting myself right next to the mailbox waiting for their arrival!

Of course I'm really hoping I win as I love Michael Miller designs and have oodles of yards of their fabrics in my overflowing stash! But I'm just excited hoping that I make it into the semi-final round of 75. I think most importantly for me this contest is keeping me on track with my fabric design goals which are ultimately to become a licensed fabric designer! I have a big notebook with the little steps leading to the big goal. Now that I've finished one big collection, I'm revisiting some of my other fabric design collections at Spoonflower and trying to fill them out with a few more pieces to expand my portfolio of designs to take to present to the big fabric houses that fit my style. I'm also just really thrilled that I actually have the energy to do this now that I have that surgery out of the way. I have so much more energy than I've had in years!!!!