Tuesday 27 December 2011

Sorry this is late but.........

A belated Merry Christmas!! With all this baby business I haven't managed to have much time to blog but I really hope that everyone has had a wonderful time in the last few days. We have had the loveliest first Christmas ever with our little Delilah...

She seemed to take all the festive activities in her stride and is currently taking a well deserved nap now it's over! xxx


LionHeart Magazine......it's here!!

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while now - and the wait is finally over and I have my hands on a copy of the brilliant Lionheart Magazine, and it's just as wonderful as I had hoped! Much more like a beautiful book than a magazine the paper is gorgeously thick and sumptuous and the print is lovely, I'd completely fallen in love with it before even reading it! I absolutely love the cover by illustrator Gemma Millie, it really sets the tone of the issue, really delicate and beautiful.

I love Helen Martin's writing anyway (the editor), but it's even more special seeing it in a magazine - I'm so so proud to be included in it, thanks so much Helen!! It has lots of really interesting articles, gorgeous illustrations and just lots and lots of loveliness! It's really so inspiring I would thoroughly recommend buying it - http://www.lionheart-mag.com/



I designed 3 patterns for the magazine which feature in the inside cover and back of the magazine, I was so excited to design for it and even more excited to see my patterns printed in such a wonderful magazine! Here they are:




I also designed a pattern for the website, I'm really pleased with how it looks:


You can buy the Lionheart Magazine here: http://www.lionheart-mag.com/buy-lionheart

Sunday 20 November 2011

My My My.... Delilah!

Ok so you may have noticed the lack of posts for a few weeks, and it's all down to me going from this:


...to this! On 31st October I had the delightful, delicious, delectable Miss Delilah Heather Coote! And she's everything we ever wished for!

I wish I could describe how amazing she is, and how everything in our lives completely changed the second we had her, but I couldn't even come close to how wonderful it all is (sorry for the sop but it's entirely true!). Isn't she a beauty??!


Thanks so much to everyone who sent me lovely messages and cards, we really appreciate it so much :-) xxx



Wednesday 26 October 2011

Bath In Fashion 2012

I was very please to be asked by the lovely writer Helen Martin to design a background pattern for the Bath In Fashion blog. The blog will feature interviews, reviews and all the latest news for the Bath In Fashion events, the incredible Manolo Blahnik and Stephen Jones (amazing!) are headlining the event, so it all sounds very exciting!

Here's the pattern I designed and a couple of other scales and colourways. My inspiration came from a vintage plate I happened to be eating some crumpets off of a couple of weeks back!



To see it on the blog please visit: http://bathfashiongirl.wordpress.com/

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Addictive Creatives

My tile wall was featured today on the fantastic Addictive Creatives website!

'Addictive Creatives is a collaborative project from Blue Tube Design & Giant Training aimed at supporting the wide spectrum of creative industries across the UK & Ireland offering freelancers and big businesses a way of accessing news, find and recruit and showcase their work.'


My tile stickers are now available to order from Make Do & Mend! For more details please email:

Thursday 20 October 2011

In the last week....

I finished this collage at Make Do & Mend a collaboration with Hannah we both chose some images we liked, and I then interspersed them with snippets of my patterns, and instruction pages from old sewing books, and stuck onto the silhouette of a sewing machine shape (many thanks to Joe for drawing it! Can't believe it was done freehand!!). Am really pleased with it - will upload some better pictures soon, to see it in the flesh please pop down to the shop!

I joined pinterest! Oh dear, hours of pinning on the internet, good job I'm on maternity leave!! Although I have to say it is so useful having all my bits of inspiration in one place, there are so many amazing images to find online already I've found using it really inspiring and valuble. To follow me click here.

Looked at my sister Alie's first blog post - it's lovely. To take a peek and follow her journey as an aspiring florist come pattern/retro/cat lover please visit here: http://alieblackman.blogspot.com/


Tuesday 11 October 2011

Flowery Alie

A patternified picture of Alie for her new flower inspired blog - will post a link and snapshot once she's started it. Doesn't she look cute?!x

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Sunday 2 October 2011

Family Things

Some patterns I have created using elements from my mum's (Sharon Blackman) textile pictures - these will be on her soon to be launched website! Here we have retro flowers...

and tea and cake.

Also my sister Alie joined twitter this week - she's an aspiring florist and is currently launching a blog to run alongside her studies - she loves delphiniums, kittens and men with moustaches! I obviously made sure she had one of my patterns for her background - to see it properly and follow her click here.

Today I found this old picture of my Grandma, Grandpa and my mum when she was a baby, they look so happy - I can't wait for me and Ian and our baby to have photos taken like this, I just hope we can look half as glamourous after all that sleep deprevation!

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Week 36 Floral

Some quick practice florals for my sisters new blog background which will be all to do with floristry, will start making more tweaks and colour changes tomorrow.



Me at 36 weeks and getting larger by the day! Can't wait to actually have this baby now, feel like I've been pregnant forever - and my little cootling is definitely a bit of a wriggler so am getting quite tired. Ah well, 4 weeks to go!




Monday 26 September 2011

Print & Pattern Feature

Was really excited to find that my pattern wall at 'Make Do and Mend' was featured on my favourite ever blog Print & Pattern today! Please click here to take a peek!

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Painting the Roses Red...

My mum and I are working on a project together at the moment and she had to draw a rose bush, well I love this little rose bush and I couldn't help but think it would make a nice tiny print pattern.....




Friday 16 September 2011

Look what I got!

Excited! Will report back next week :-)

Paper Patchwork Workshop

Some pictures of the work created at yesterday's workshop for the Chelmsford Arts Trail at Make Do & Mend. I printed out lots of my pattern designs onto paper and people collaged pictures using them, as well as being inspired by the ethos at the shop and the lovely surroundings. All the ladies who came created some beautiful pictures - thanks so much for coming!





Wednesday 14 September 2011

Workshops!

A few photos from yesterday's workshops for the Chelmsford Arts Trail at Make Do & Mend. I had a lovely day, first tile decorating and then making vintage paper dress up dolls in the evening - was lovely to meet some the ladies who came and meet again fellow arts trail artist Andrea Farmer. Looking forward to tomorrow's paper patchwork :-)





Thursday 8 September 2011

The Chelmsford Arts Trail: Make Do & Mend

My display for the Chelmsford Arts Trail is now up! Am very excited to be in Make Do & Mend on Byron Road (just off Navigation Road in Chelmsford) - and can you believe they've actually allowed me to tile a whole wall in my designs!! Have absolutely loved collaborating with the Hannah the owner, and there's so much more to come - will keep you updated with regular blogposts through the week of the trail. Here's Ian and I sticking the vinyl stickers up today:




Me (looking extremely whale like!) and the lovely Hannah the company owner.

Big thank you to Hannah for having me in her beautiful shop - and her husband Joe for expert tiling :-)

Oh and this is an image of my piece in the group show (it's all framed and mounted now but forgot to take a picture). The group show will be open from saturday in the old Barclays building in Chelmsford Highstreet.


I will be in the shop on Saturday so please come and say hello! For details on the workshops I will be doing please visit: http://makedomend.com/workshopsnew.html

And for more info on the Chelmsford Arts Trail go to: http://www.chelmsfordartstrail.com/2011/blog/