Perseverance

Last year I was blessed to be able to participate in Bonnie Christine Forkner's new surface pattern design class called Surface Pattern Design Immersion. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator to make repeating patterns for textile design - and so so much more. (I'll have more details about the upcoming class and how you can join in future blog posts!)

Bonnie has a surface pattern design membership group called the Flourish Surface Design Dig that I'm a member of. This year, she has a monthly design challenge to help us create surface patterns for our portfolios, collections, etc. The month of January seemed so busy (with what, I don't know!) so I didn't get around to opening up the email with the challenge details until a couple of days before the deadline of January 31. Her prompt for the January design was to pick a word of intention for the year and create a design that represented that word. Ugh! I'm not good with that sort of thing.

But I forged ahead because I wanted to participate. Trying to choose a word had me stumped. But after the lackluster responses I received at market on my portfolio, I knew I could easily quit and give up, which is something I really don't want to do - so I began looking at words like persistence and persevere. I wanted to represent my word with a floral drawing so I researched what flowers might represent any of these words. I hit upon the word 'perseverance' when I found that bindweed, that noxious weed we continually fight on our farm, symbolized it. (Just to be thorough, the magnolia also symbolizes the word perseverance, but it isn't a flower/tree native to western Kansas so it has little meaning to me.) So I set about sketching a bindweed flower and it's arrow-shaped leaves, which is really the identifying part of the plant. I was thrilled when my farmer hubby identified my drawing as bindweed without hesitation!

The background in the first photo is my finished design. I was really happy with the design and the limited color palette I used. But, one of the comments I received at market about my designs was the use of outlines on my motifs. It gives the designs a vintage feel, which I like and I feel is my style, but on more than one occasion I was told by art directors that their company did not have any more room for vintage-inspired designers. So I decided to play around with my flowers and create a pattern without lines and this is my first attempt. 

I didn't have a lot of time to work on this because, as I said, it was near the deadline and I was actually spending the next 4 days at my mom's for her annual Sisters Sewing Retreat, which is always a fun way to celebrate her birthday. Hopefully next week I'll have a couple of quilt finishes from our retreat to share (tops are finished but needs to be quilted)!

~Sharla

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