The long journey to happiness...

I love it when lovely customers ask for something a little out of the ordinary.

A week or so ago Adrianne, in New Zealand, approached me with a very unusual request.

She loved my prints ~ thank you Adrianne ~ but didn't love Kona cottons and how would I feel about printing on some Freespirit designer solids that she was planning on ordering from Westwood Acre Fabric?

Personally I will print on anything so that was fine by me.

And so began the long distance travel of a Pretty Potent Bundle from the US to me here in the UK.

It arrived on a sunshiny day yesterday and I set to print up as requested.

And now the said bundle has continued its journey down under. Talk about a small world and our amazing community.

I have to say, having never before seen Freespirit designer solids, I can see why Adrianne is so smitten with them and I think the next order will include some for me!

Blueberry Park Makes 1...

One of the great pleasures I get from designing and printing fabric is seeing all the wonderful items that you all make with them.

Here are a bunch of amazing things that have popped up on Instagram this week. I just love the way everyone is so creative and has an individual take on what they create and to see my fabrics popping up in all sorts of different projects makes me oh so happy and proud.
You can see more of these great pieces and their talented owners on Instagram, clockwise from top left...

Rebecca
Nina
Sandra 
Britt 

I have decided this is going to be a monthly feature on my blog...I will be posting my favourite makes with Blueberry Park fabrics at the end of each month. If you would like to be featured and show what you have created, all you need to do is post your pics on Instagram with the tag #blueberryparkmakes or if you don't do Instagram then you can post them on my Flickr group page too...also called Blueberry Park Makes. 

I can't wait to see what you all are getting up to....it is so inspiring!

Summer Workshop Take l...

It has been too long since I did a workshop at home. Other work commitments, kid commitments, life, the universe, everything was in the way, but I had arranged 2 for this summer and the first of which was yesterday reminded me just how much I love doing them.

I had the best group of ladies here yesterday. First of all there was my Bee buddy Di. It was fantastic to meet Di and despite her insistence that she couldn't draw she produced a fab leaf design (bottom right) that she was quite rightly proud of.

Two lovely ladies came from down the road in Doncaster. I had met Rebecca when we had both exhibited at BCTF and she brought along her friend Tina. The final lady that made up the foursome was Maya, all the way from Copenhagen! I was beyond flattered that Maya and her hubby planned a little Yorkshire mini break around my workshop...praise indeed! Maya and I had been chatting over IG and it was just wonderful to have her here in my home at a workshop.

The day was just perfect...enthusiastic and talented ladies...beautiful weather so we could lunch on the deck...just the perfect way to spend a day. I think they all went away feeling like they had had a good successful time and I'm watching keenly to see how their screen printing progresses after the workshop and the fact that they all went home with a copy of my book!

all in a day's work...

 getting ready for the next edition of the blueberry park fabric club means there is a lot of this going on at the mo...



which means there is lots of this to do afterwards...my favourite kind of washing up.




there is trialling of new colour mixes...the perfect shade of mustard printed onto white...

all followed by hanging out to dry, ironing and folding, with a little caressing thrown in.




all in a day's play work.

:: the big one ::

i hinted last week that there was more good news to come.

after a week of being in various publications and hitting you from all sides this week has ended with being able to reveal the big one.

the week started with me getting very excited, possibly a little bit too, over a couple of new designs i have been working on and getting them onto screen sand printing up.

let me introduce to you flowerbeds and hexie plus...

i am really giddily pleased with these and can't wait to eek out some time to sew with them and print more colours and get them in the shop.

will keep you posted on that.

in the meantime the big one happened...

those of you that follow me regularly will know i have been harping on about a secret project for some time. 

the time has come to reveal...

MY BOOK!!

i am an author!!!

it feels completely and utterly surreal for me to say those words and even more to search screen printing at home on amazon and find this there! (altho please don't search 'karen lewis'...you will find some quite dodgy fiction that i swear isn't written by me!)

it is quite a giddy time at the moment...lots happening and i have a feeling the giddiness isn't going to go away just yet.

the book is due to be published at the end of July but you can pre-order it now on Amazon (a huge appreciative thank you for those who have done already x). Here's the link for UK and it is also available here on the US website.

more to come on it soon...i don't think you have heard the last of me!

:: quilt improv the blog tour ::

Happy New Year!

i feel bad that i haven't stopped by to wish you all a happy new year but hopefully my post and giveaway today will soften that blow.

today is my turn on the fantabulously talented Lu Summer's blog tour of her equally fantabulous new book Quilt Improv.

i have long since been a huge fan of Lu's and it is fair to say that she was a huge inspiration to me starting my screen printing journey. her improv quilting style is very unique and so i was very excited when i heard that she was bringing this book out and even more excited to be asked to be on Lu's blog tour.

Quilt Improv is such a visual feast of a book, with beautiful photos all taken on Lu's picturesque farm. even if you aren't a quilter you won't help but be drawn in by the colourful shots. 

not only is Quilt Improv a stunning book to look at but it is also extremely well planned and one that will become a favourite resource for improv quilting. 

the book begins by teaching you how to do 13 improv designs and then goes on to show you how to make 12 quilts that Lu has designed using these blocks.

one of the things i love most about Lu's book is seeing how you can follow a pattern but make it entirely your own and every time you play around with the designs each quilt will come out differently. 

i had a great deal of fun this week trying out some of the blocks and piecing them together to make my own little improv quilt. some may say too much fun...

so the giveaway...

f & w media, the clever publishers behind Quilt Improv are very kindly offering one of you my lovely readers, near or far, a copy of the book. All you need to do is leave a comment here and I will pick a winner by midnight sunday 12 jan...or a little earlier if i'm having an early night.

check out the other reviews, and opportunities to win a copy of Quilt Improv, at other stops on the book tour going through the rest of the month. to see the other stops on the Quilt Improv blog tour over the next month visit Stitch Craft Create. 

good luck!

busy old week

 lots of activity at bp headquarters this week...

:: a rush on baby boy cards, altho sadly none for george alexander louis...

:: redesigning triangle mania image in an attempt to have it repeatable...that means larger fabric panels...that means excitement!

:: back to putting the advent calendar kits on a screen...apparently some people think it's time to start thinking about christmas...ugghhh...

:: however i am rather pleased with the 2013 update...a resting rudolph on xmas day!

:: a project half done...printed and all ready to sew...what will it be?

:: and even time spent on the glimma quilt...fmq'ed to an inch of its life and being bound as we speak...

:: i love weeks like this...constructive and fun and still 2 days left to get more ticked off...

smug? moi? no, just happy x

pretty practical...

 yesterday began with a quick much needed project.

the loo door is half glass and when we first moved in i put up a temporary scratty piece of fabric to tide us over...that was 9 years ago now...ahem...

every time i sat on the loo i was reminded that i really needed to rectify this.

9 years is obviously plenty of time to decide just what i wanted up there.

having played around with doily prints recently and having developed a recent penchant for this colour ways having been inspired by this print i put 2 and 2 together and whipped up this piece of fabric.

it was a case of layering up the colours using the lovely warm sunshine to speed up the drying process...

it started with pale pink...followed swiftly by some ochre...

and finally a splash of gunmetal grey.

4 stitched edges and an insert of ribbon and i'm wondering why it took my 9 years.

i'll have time now to think of other things while frequenting the littlest room in the house.

shopping take 1...and 2...

in further preparation for saltaire makers fair at the weekend i went to our local fabric mecca in search of some much needed supplies.

i wasn't sure i would get what i needed as it's a bit of an aladdin's cave and can be hit and miss. i knew what i wanted to make but quite what i would come home with to make it was all part of the thrill.

i came home with this pile of beauties...amongst other things...ahem. 

the denim is the most wonderfully soft indigo denim by designer paul smith no less. i wanted it to make some of these and originally bought it thinking i would be screen printing on it but actually when i had made a couple up i thought it didn't need anything adding.

i did however get some screen printing action going with item number 2 from the denim...

bistro aprons.

i did a little IG survey...knee length or thigh? 

the overwhelming consensus was thigh.

this surprised me somewhat as i originally made them thigh but thought it a bit short so made one knee (or slightly above)

personally i thought this was better...

more coverage...

but apparently not.

we'll see what the punters at the weekend say.

by the end of play yesterday and doing my usual IG posting as i made, i had already sold all those i had made...whoops, none for the fair.

so today it was back to fabworks for...

and boy was i glad i did!

check out this gorgeous emerald green braid and liberty-esque fabric...i was in love!

more denim was acquired, the emerald bag was constructed and boy oh boy i was in love!

i'm not entirely sure this one will make it to the fair either...i think i'll be claiming it as mine...but the good news is that shopping take 2 consisted of enough to make a fair few more of this one...phew ;-)

the process...

it goes from this...

 and this...

to this...

and then this...

 to finally this...

and a bit of this...

all in less than 24 hours.

i love the process of design to screen to printing and it's been quite a while since i did it.

happy days.

wordless wednesday...almost...

   mixing colours...

   thinking of spring...

   pale and delicate...

   floral fresh...

   wonder how they will look when printed up?

training her up...

 First day of the school holidays and Ruby and I had our long awaited date at the screen printing studio.

Ruby had drawn this fab horse at school in art and we thought it would look great as a screen print. We had already had an order from a family member for a cushion. I am pretty sure she doesn't read my blog so it's safe to show you before she gets it. Ruby did it weeks ago but this was really the first opportunity we had had. 

Besides which it was a lovely first day of the holidays activity.

 We went to the workshop to expose the screen. That's the only thing I need to go there for now and it was actually nice to go see everyone there.

Once home and the screen dry Ruby got kitted up to get printing.

 Next step was to let that dry before we (me) could sew it into the cushion.

Pause for a sec to see my testing piece, the fabric I use to flood the screen with ink and test it has gone through. It is like a diary of my prints!

Finally the cushion was sewn up and one happy producer!

She has decided she would like to sell more of these (rather than just the family member sympathy buyer) and is trying to establish a fair split. We haven't quite come to a happy conclusion for both parties yet.

Let's just say we are in negotiation...

ps last day to enter my Glimma giveaway...go here if you haven't already...