Yes, I’m sewing!

So “vents” are apparently slits. By process of elimination and also by process of tearing out my hair for hours, I’ve deciphered my first garment pattern.tmp_30304-20170116_2252001827235078

Special thanks to YouTube and the rest of the interwebs for helping me unlock the jargon of “Simplicity” New Look 6312.

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Ok, I admit, I chose the wrong pattern for my first project, what a newbie, indeed! But it came out not too shabbily!

Next I made not one, but TWO little zipper pouches. Again, YouTube gets my gratitude and praise: The Crafty Gemini has some great tutorials.

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My first zippered pouch, made using my own fabric design as well (Koi Pond)
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Second pouch, made with fusible this time instead of quilting

What to make next? I have a few precious swatches of my own Spoonflower designs, but they are on the smallish side. The tutorial hunt begins anew!

Taniku shokubutsu

Taniku shokubutsu, or “spoiled child”, according to Weblio‘s definition of the word “succulents” in Japanese:

translation of succulent in Japanese

I guess a spoiled child would probably be ta-niku (have plenty of meat)!

I had absolutely no IDEA about the succulent-verse online until I photographed the adorable little things as I was walking one day. Peeps are real serious about these plump plants! Using the PRISMA app, I made a colorful fabric pattern out of some little succies I photographed while walking near Date Street in Honolulu, HI.

Succulents Date Street Honolulu, HI

Then using the Prisma app on my phone, I applied different filters to the photo:

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Then I took a screenshot of my phone and opened it in Photoshop (CS5, version 12.0). You can also save the photo or e-mail it to yourself. (Prisma cropped my photo so I had to run it twice, once on each side of the photo.)

screencaps

After cropping out the phone stuff and the app, I aligned and joined the 2 halves of the photo together into 1 layer. Then I made a backup, duplicate of the entire layer and turned it off, just in case I messed up later.

Next I used the Lasso tool to duplicate a few flowers. I just traced around the edges of a flower and Copied as New Layer a few times, until I had a few extra flowers to be used later as ‘filler’.

photoshopscreencap2

Then I used the Offset filter (select menu Filter>Other>Offset) to turn the picture into a repeat with four corners.

repeat using offset filter
Offset filter applied. Now just gotta fill in the center area with some filler flowers.

Using my new flower copies, I filled in the blank space in the center where the four corners meet. Then I used the Smudge tool to blend the four corners together.

smudge-to-join

I think it came out pretty well, don’t you?

ザントカって誰?

「ザントカ」は私のスプーンフラワーのショップネームです!

文学の研究した経験はあるならば、種田山頭火(Taneda Santoka)と言う詩人を思い出すでしょう。

「なんとか」 + 私の下の名前ザンドラのコンビです。 そしてわたしのTwitter 名前@zan_toka !  :)

ちょっとまって。。。「スプーンフラワー」というのは何でしょうか?? Weblioオンライン辞典によると「ヤムイモまたはじゃがいものように料理され食べられる、食用の塊茎がある熱帯アメリカの里芋」です。自分の布をデザインしたり売ったり買ったりしているウェブサイトです  —  この下ご覧ください!

Fabric desgns
Fabric designs


Who is Zantoka??

Zantoka is my Spoonflower shop name!!

It’s derived from a phrase in Japanese — “nan toka” — which means “something or other.”  Students of literature may also be remided of the Japanese poet Santoka. Or my Twitter handle @zan_toka !  🙂

Wait, what’s Spoonflower, you ask? It’s a fabric print-on-demand service, where artists from around the world design, buy and sell fabrics, including yours truly — take a look!

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