Designer Feature: Sarah English of Pattern State

Designer Feature: Sarah English of Pattern State:


One of my favorite parts of Pattern Observer is getting to highlight fantastically talented designers and today’s featured designer, Sarah English has me beaming with pattern love! Sarah has been a textile designer for 10 years, but only recently launched Pattern State, a personal project. “It’s a place where creativity is allowed to extend past the office hours into my own world.  The surface design community is an incredibly exciting place to be right now.”
Her debut collection, which you see above, is inspired by the garden. “I like creating prints that are attractive at first glance, but in this case, are made up of those creatures that can be devastating to a thriving garden: snakes, bats, rabbits and foxes.”
I strongly encourage you to check out her website, blog and spoonflower page, where you can purchase one of the coolest tea towel calendars that I have ever seen! Have a fantastic weekend!!
P.S. This is a reminder to sign up for the Ultimate Guide to Repeats Wait List. Class size is limited and those on the list will receive access to early registration!

Featured Designer: Marta Spendowska

Featured Designer: Marta Spendowska:

Happy Friday pattern lovers! Today I am featuring the wonderful work of Marta Spendowska. Marta is from Poland, but is now based in the ol’ USA where she works as an illustrator, surface pattern designer and web designer. “Today I think in repeats, watercolors and HTML. Pattern and motif creation happens a second after I close my eyes. Coding for me is like discovering the perfect shade of turquoise. It’s all the same joy.”
Marta has been successfully selling her illustration (mainly portrait and perfume illustration) artwork on FAB.com, she’s been licensed with Deny Designs and the new European venue YouArtMe. She hopes to work in fashion illustration more and more. To see more of Marta’s work please visit her website.
I hope that you had a wonderful week filled with the work that you love. We are busy over here gearing up for the Sellable Sketch Workshop, working on repeats with the fantastic designers who registered for the UGTR workshop and creating prints for a number of Summer & Fall ’14 collections. It is a whirlwind!
Have a great weekend!!!

Liz Collins: Touching the Void

Liz Collins: Touching the Void:

Courtesy of Liz Collins

Garments, Installation, and Performance
Residents of the New York Tristate area need a little reprieve from the weather and what better way to get some creative warmth but to visit artist and designer Liz Collins hybrid knitted art and fashion installation, which opens to the public on February 15th at Manhattan’s Textile Art Center (TAC).
Collins is known globally for her use of machine knitting to create unique clothing, textile, performances and installations. In 2005, Collins kicked off her installation performance art with Knitting Nation—her perspective of working in the textile and fashion industries—which consisted of numerous uniformed knitters and manually operate knitting machines. The show examined how people interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, brand iconography, and fashion.
Touching the Void is part structural and part surreal, Collins turns the TAC into a knitted cave made from post-consumer garments and other textiles. The installation consists of innovative knit constructions that have been inspired by bodily protuberances, growths and sinkages. Both deconstructed and reconstructed “blob” shirts hang from inflated spheres; the walls are built up like a padded room with piles of knit fabric and large wall pieces. Collins investigates the “void” via her sculptural textile and garments by blending graphic and figurative knitting with washes of ink gradation.
This exhibit also marks Collins return to fashion. On display will be a varied collection of limited edition unisex sweaters made in Peru, which will be sold by the artist during the month-long installation and exhibit. The show features an interactive venue in which visitors with a panache for fashion and modeling can participate in a live lookbook shoot that will run during the duration of the opening.
The TAC space isn’t a new venue for Collins. Fifteen years ago she had her first collection of sweaters shown off on mannequins in Patricia Field’s store window, downstairs from TAC. “It’s amazing to full circle and present some of my favorite, and most wearable pieces on the same site; and finally be able to stage a a show where my art and clothing are co-existing in the space,” said Collins.
Visitors to the exhibit will be able to interact with garment and the knit sculptures, and will have the opportunity to see the details of the interrelated fixed elements.
Touching the Void opens on Friday, February 15th at the Textile Arts Center, 25 West 8th St, New York, NY. A reception will be held from 6pm until 8pm. The entire show runs through March 15th.
For more information about Liz Collins, visit www.lizcollins.com.

The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Holly Levell

The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Holly Levell:

Holly Levell is a textile artist from the UK who specialises in soft sculpture.


“I am inspired by my daily surroundings and the unnoticed aspects of life and how as an artist I can change the status and meaning of the humble object using my personal textile craft technique. It’s the idea of taking something that is overlooked in life and catapulting it into the spotlight.

“My current work comes from exploring ideas for the objects that feature in our day to day lives. I began to focus on shopping and started stitching a flat bean can in my room, it made me think ‘I wonder if I can make this completely from stitched textiles?’ softening the idea and creating a soft, nostalgic object. Supermarket stitch had begun!

“Originally I had no idea how to go about making them so it was a bit of trial and error. All of the objects have been taken apart and re-sewn together at least 10 times until I get the ketchup bottle lid to look just right or the ring pull on a coke can to look as though you could actually pull on it.

“I never thought about it until I began this work but we all have sentimental memories and a certain fondness for the foods and products that surround us in our lives, a bottle of Heinz Tomato ketchup in the middle of our table at home has become as much a staple piece of furniture as the table and chairs we sit at.”


I love a good soft sculpture and Holly’s choice of subject matter brings a smile to my face. Akin to the work of Harriet Hammel, Holly takes ordinary objects and makes us reconsider them by producing them in soft format.

Technically adept and well chosen, Holly’s work is great fun and a terrific example of the form. Find out more about Holly at her website.

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The Cutting & Stitching Edge is brought to you in association with PUSH: Stitchery, the must-have embroidered art book by Mr X Stitch !

The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Maxine Sutton

The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Maxine Sutton:

Maxine Sutton is a textile designer from Margate, England.

“If one were to imagine a workshop household, one would envision a situation where most, if not all things were made in a more imaginative and beautiful way than in quotidian life” - Mark Rosenthal
I love the idea of the workshop household described by Mark Rosenthal, and believe in the importance of our interaction with materials, texture, pattern, and the handmade.The handmade object creates layers of significance and forms a part of personal and family narratives, making links and connections through generations.

“My work continues to explore the interplay between screen-printed and embroidered textures, colour, mark, drawn and stitched lines. Often playing with imagery and ideas springing from our relationship with familiar domestic objects, everyday pastimes, the meaning of ‘home’ and home-making activities. Abstract and semi-figurative forms combined with pattern and texture present an ambiguous narrative.

Using Irish machine, and hand embroidery I employ a combination of traditional techniques, such as appliqué  patchwork, needle-punch and screen print. Forms, are hand drawn, paper cut, found or photographic; layered and collaged with abstract and semi figurative appliquéd, needle-punched and printed imagery. Embroidered lines and densely embroidered areas create further layers of texture and interest.”

I like a good bit of mixed up textile work and Maxine’s work is a great example. Quirky and wistful, the combination of machine embroidery, appliqué and screen printing is very contemporary and quite charming.

Visit Maxine’s website to see more of her work, including paper collage work, and check out her shop for lovely home furnishings!

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The Cutting & Stitching Edge is brought to you in association with PUSH: Stitchery, the must-have embroidered art book by Mr X Stitch !

Bubble and Speaking

Bubble and Speaking:

>> Some of you may have seen that I've started to pen a column for the much-respected (and rightly so),the Business of Fashion entitled Bubble and Speak (geddit, geddit?)  I'm not sure who to credit for that bit of clever punnery but it makes for a catchy title for a column about introducing young designers.  For my first bit of Bubble and Speaking, I talked up the knitwear duo Leutton Postle aka Jenny Postle and Sam Leutton, who caught my attention ever since Jenny Postle's Central Saint Martins graduate MA collection in 2011.
During the summer, whilst the duo were working on their S/S 13 collection, which they showed as part of Vauxhall Fashion Scout in September's London Fashion Week, I went to visit their wonderful cavernous studio.  It was a hive of knit trick activity.  I've stored up all these photos of a real work in progress, which don't necessarily relate to the final S/S 13 collection that was shown.  Ideas get scrapped.  Decisions change.  Directions can swerve in the course of the build-up to the final collection.  However, these pics do show that Leutton and Postle are constantly experimenting with a combination of hand and machine knit techniques, incorporating different yarns together as well as materials.  When I went to visit, they were fixated by hammer beads, the sort that you meld together into different formations when you're a kid.  A lot of these experimental samples didn't make it into the final collection.  It's hardly a wasted effort though.  What didn't work this time round is kept in Leutton and Postle's big basket of sample squares and could potentially be bought out for future collections.  The sketches shown here were also initial ideas for S/S 13 that were then scrapped.  To me they look like fertile ideas to pursue later down the line.  Leutton Postle are evidently in the fortunate position of having excessive creative output, which they can then edit down when it comes to the final collection.
They even had time to knit a wonderful baby blanket in anticipation of the birth of Mary Portas and Melanie Rickey's baby (Rickey gave birth in September).  Read the full article on Business of Fashion to find out more about this knitwear duo.  Suffice to say, I believe them when they say there's so much more experimentation to come.

Quilty Pleasures: Leslie Gabriëlse

Quilty Pleasures: Leslie Gabriëlse:
This is an extra fun post because I get to talk about my buddy Leslie Gabriëlse
I met him a few weeks ago while we both were up at the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum hanging a few pieces. [Yes its a him. Leslie is a boy name in Holland. Where he hails from.]

I was fortunate enough to see a lecture by him while he was in the country and he spoke a bit on his process, which is different from a lot of other quilters because his stitches are mostly for keeping the pieces on and he uses paint without any qualm.

this gives the figures nice lines and shadows.

His work gave me a new perspective on how to construct quilts like paintings. It’s nice to see other methods.

Here is my favorite of his pieces. I couldn’t find any details. but he put a bird on it.

What do you think about painting on quilts for the details?

Interiors | Eley Kishimoto Rugs

Interiors | Eley Kishimoto Rugs:


Eley Kishimoto has a way with patterns. Their designs have touched almost every type of surface from apparel to wallpaper, and even motorcycles and cars. Their most recent application includes an exclusive line of rugs for furniture store, Aram. The pair have recreated a selection of patterns pulled from their fashion textiles of the 1990s in hand-tufted wool. One of our favorite prints – the flash print – makes it into the mix. Add one underfoot here.
– Jessie Whipple Vickery

eley kishimoto rugs for aram