tea towel calendars and a 2 for 1 sale

Every year spoonflower holds a tea towel calendar contest at the end of November. These calendars are designed to fit on a fat quarter of linen-cotton canvas. This year my design features sweet peas. I worked on the winding trellises of sweet pea flowers during a holiday in Germany a few months ago and enjoyed creating a seamless repeat. I love working with a scanner and a printer which I don't have at home, it means I can work on multiple versions of the design by hand, rather than doing most of the touch-up and fine-tuning on the computer.
I shared a photo of the process on instagram a while back:

While I'm still tweaking the repeating pattern, I decided to use this for a calendar, since the trellis shape was perfect to hold twelve months.
Here's the final design, which is for sale now in my shop:

A close-up photo of the colours printed on fabric:

I also finally updated my 2015 blackberry calendar for 2016. This calendar is available here.

Finally, spoonflower is having a 2 for 1 sale on all fat quarters, so you can either get both calendars for the price of one or choose any other fabric or type of fabric in my shop!

fabric blocks tutorial

A few months ago on instagram I posted a picture of some fabric covered blocks I made for my daughter. Here is a picture tutorial of how I made the blocks. I used an old greengate placemat that I had kept, hoping I could make something with the beautiful matching fabric. And the blocks I've actually had since I was 13, dragging them across various continents in the hope that some day I would get around to covering them! I made ten blocks.

• Prepare the fabric
• Measure your foam blocks and make a template - I made mine 1/4 inch wider than the blocks on all sides
• cut out squares of fabric

• Sew six squares together in a cross shape, starting and ending the seams 1/4 inch in from the edge of the fabric
• Sew Y-seams so that you have a little cube, leaving one edge open for turning

• Trim the corners of the fabric, turn the cube and poke out the corners
• Stuff with the cube and close the last seam by hand