Three Sheets 2 the Wind Blog

Back on February 22nd, Kim Knight from True Up posted a few images of the new prints available in fabric form. There are three artwork styles available in six different color ways each. Thanks to my husband and his excellent structural skills, I have a 16ft. print table that allows me to print up to 4.5 yds continuously. I love love this table and the gratification of printing the entire fabric width myself, but I’ve run into a bit of a problem lately… I’m almost 20 weeks pregnant and my belly is starting to affect the length of my reach across the table! (aka “other fun news) Guess I’ll have to teach my husband how to screen print. Ha ha.

Here is an entry from June 5th, 2010 which explains the process.

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It took a bit of work and research to figure out how to print full coverage prints by myself. You might wonder why this is difficult. Well… it all has to do with the size of the screens (more or less a stencil) used for printing. Most full coverage prints are hand screened using two people. The length of the screen covers the width of the fabric (58″-60″) and a person stands on each side of the table, passing the squeegee and ink back and forth in one pass and the repeat only has match up on two sides. What I wanted to do was to be able to print full coverage prints by myself so I designed the patterns to fit in screens that only spanned half the table width. By doing this I could print a full repeat by alternating down each side of the table myself. The difficult part was designing patterns, for the screens, that had to match up on four sides, instead of two.

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My husband and I will be headed to Baltimore next week for the American Craft Council show in Baltimore. It’s a four day retail show. This is my first time exhibiting at an ACC show so I’m excited to see how it goes.  I am taking the full coverage printed linen pillows, various wall prints, and a few new printed silk tops. Our booth number is 725.

It was a huge compliment to get a write up in the UK blog print & pattern on February 3rd. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this blog, you have to check it out if you love all types of graphic design work and pattern/textile design. It’s truly overwhelming and inspiring!

http://printpattern.blogspot.com/

I love traveling back to Chicago (lived there 3 years) and the Renegade Craft Fair is one of my favorite reasons to head north. The holiday sale was amazing this year. There was a huge turnout. I mean people were everywhere! It was hard just to leave the booth at times. And… the vendors were super talented this year. Wow! I feel so humbled every time I walk around one of these shows. I bought a few holiday gifts with my cash stash. (couldn’t help myself)

I also wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by the booth and made a few gift purchases for either themselves or for someone else. I’ve been doing this for six years now (juggling teaching and freelance work) and I hope to continue doing this for many years to come. I love having a creative outlet where I get to make beautiful things that I like to look at and that can make other people smile too.

Thank you so very much,

Jenny

Also…

Fabric is NOW available on the website. (mini rah!) You can buy new full coverage prints in repeating patterns up to ~4 1/2 yards in length. The print below is Ani windflower in chartreuse and teal on pebble colored linen. I love the idea of making curtains or large scale wall prints out of this fabric.

My seafoam green Eames chair just happened to match this print perfectly… and I threw my beloved sock monkey (from the 70’s) into this shot for fun!

We’ll be in the 2nd Gym room, first floor, booth 55, which is along Cleaver Street.

See you in Chicago!

One of my goals is to use my Etsy shop more often. I will admit… I haven’t given it much love lately. It’s the perfect place to put work up quickly and easily and I can always test new ideas on the site for very little effort. So… I recently added a few of my favorite pillow styles to the Etsy site so that I could offer them without pillow inserts. I get requests to buy covers only from time to time, so I figured Etsy is the perfect place to sell them individually. If anyone is interested in a particular style, just email me and I’ll put it up on the Etsy site!

Now that the weather is finally turning cooler and the leaves are starting to fall, I feel like “cleaning house” to get ready for the fast approaching holiday season. But before I start organizing the studio, I need to tell you about a few things…

First, a new fabric page will be launching on the website soon… Just in time for all you DIY fans to get busy with gifts for yourself or someone else this year. Second, I’ll be gearing up for two shows this winter; the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago, December 4th+5th, and the American Craft Council retail show in Baltimore, February 24th-27th.

I also wanted to update the blog with a few new images from this summer. Cincinnati Magazine ran a section this summer called “locals only”. The Daisy flower pillow in natural linen was featured in the Necessities section.

Also, a year or so ago I printed three custom prints for a playroom in Florida for interior designer, Lauren Stern. Her website was updated earlier this summer and the images are just amazing!

Lastly, I had to include a photo from my vacation this summer. My husband and I celebrated our one year anniversary by traveling to Italy and France for two weeks this September. Here we we are in Chamonix, France, standing on a platform reachable only by cable car at 12,000+ feet near Mont Blanc. That was quite some ride… straight up!

Happy Fall Everyone!

Jenny

I’ve just posted photos of the new full coverage patterns on flickr.

The past few months have been very exciting for me in the studio. My goal, beginning this past winter, was to create patterns that covered more of the fabric ground and went edge to edge (the width) of my linen yardage. It took a bit of work and research to figure out how to print full coverage prints by myself. You might wonder why this is difficult. Well… it all has to do with the size of the screens (more or less a stencil) used for printing. Most full coverage prints are hand screened using two people. The length of the screen covers the width of the fabric (58″-60″) and a person stands on each side of the table, passing the squeegee and ink back and forth in one pass and the repeat only has match up on two sides. What I wanted to do was to be able to print full coverage prints by myself so I designed the patterns to fit in screens that only spanned half the table width. By doing this I could print a full repeat by alternating down each side of the table myself. The difficult part was designing patterns, for the screens, that had to match up on four sides, instead of two.

The pillows in the image above show the three new full coverage prints on white linen. The patterns are from left to right: ani windflower, fugi floral and prairie grass. All three patterns are available in six different color combinations. The pillows in the image below show another color option on pebble colored linen.

Here’s an image of the new 16 ft printing table that my business partner/ husband built for me in the studio. What you can’t see in this photo is the metal rails that run down the length of the table and hold my new large screens in place so that I can print full coverage prints by myself. I had just printed a duvet on this day so the rails were unscrewed and place underneath the table. As you can see, the studio space is still not finished yet. Cross your fingers… this will happen soon!

It’s been some time since I posted… I suppose I become a bit of a hermit when it gets cold outside. More importantly, the winter months are when I create new artwork and this year was no exception. In about two weeks, the website will be updated with new all-over patterns in 18″ square wall prints, 18″ square pillows and 12″x20″ rectangular pillows.

I’ll be selling new pattern wall prints this weekend at the OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration located in downtown Cincinnati. This is only the second year for the outdoor event and my first time participating, but I am super excited to be involved in a show so close to home!

Booths will be set up on Vine Street between 12th & 13th Street near MiCA 12/v.