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!!!!

I'm published!!!!!

OK, not really, though I have been published four times in some of Somerset's other publications. But imagine my excitement tonight when I was visiting our local bookstore and grabbed a copy of the newest issue of Where Women Create to peruse over my chai. As I opened the magazine and reached one of the very first articles which was recapping the fabulous Creative Connection Event from last September. In taking a quick glance at all of the pictures, I noticed a pic of my hero, Amy Butler, and realized it was me with her in the photo!!!! She's holding my business card and talking with me!!!!! You can't see my face or anything, but you see my arm, my Nikon camera strap, my blue dotted shirt and my hair. I was just so excited to see the moment I had been most looking forward to actually in print. Not that I needed a picture to preserve that amazing moment for me, but it is really exciting as Amy is the person I was most excited about meeting and hearing from at the conference. She is an amazingly talented person, so real and genuine and down to earth and most inspiring to me as she has stayed true to who she is and become a fabulously successful woman. Thank you for letting me share my ridiculously over-the-top excitement!

Sign here, please

This is the minuscule pile of books that was my traveling companion to The Creative Connection Event. This little, light stack of hardboard and paper necessitated it's very own bag to Minneapolis. While others were purchasing their books at the Barnes and Noble booth at the conference site, I brought all these books that have graced my bookshelves for years and are now graced by the greetings and autographs of all my "she"roes! Though I did not have the books of all 30 or so authors at the event, this was quite enough for me! I think any more would have necessitated back surgery on my part following the conference! You'll also notice that Amy Butler's books are at the very top of the stack!

The Butler did it!

I will have so much more to say about this in the coming days, but for right now I just wanted to share one pic from my magnificent trip to The Creative Connection Event in Minneapolis over the last few days. One of the absolute highlights, if not the best moment, for me was getting to meet Amy Butler!!!!! This is the moment I got to meet her and have her sign the books she's authored. This amazing autograph party was jam-packed with nearly 30 amazing women creatives and authors. I did not get books signed by all of them, but suffice it to say I did have to pack a whole extra bag just for all the books of my "she"roes!!!!!

The autograph party was followed by the opening dinner and keynote addresses given by Amy as well as Mary Jane Butters, farmgirl extraordinaire! It was the best way to wrap up an exciting first day of this amazing event. I loved Amy's presentation which included a slide show of the evolution of her life and business. She also shared the influences in her life that inspired her love of stitching and design. Probably most inspiring to me was her message of being your genuine, authentic self and following your passion - something I must remind myself of everyday and the message I will strive to pass on to every one I meet.

That's all I can manage for tonight - unpacking and ooohing and aaahing over all of the gifts we were given during the conference just absolutely took it all out of me!!!! More to come tomorrow and in the following days (along with some giveaways to share my stash of artistic booty with my faithful followers!!!!!)