Slow - Busy - Slow

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm working on starting a shop over at Etsy. It's taking much longer than I thought it would - there are so many things, for both production and admin, that I need to research and am doing for the first time - but I'm working hard at it and I hope to open soon!

Motifs for the shop banner & cotton panels in the dye pot.

Clockwise: Sparrow - Palace Garden - Butterfly & Bloom zipped pouches!

I'm impatient to open and send off some goodies! Are you the same as me? Do things take longer than you think they will?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden in New Colours!

Hi! I think this might be the longest I've left between posts here; we've been so busy this summer! Good news is that our old falling-down house isn't so falling-down anymore. We've worked on almost all the things we needed to, including the living room which was one of the biggest jobs, and at the weekend we ordered new sofas! This was so exciting for me because we've been using an upstairs bedroom with an ancient sofa as a living room for years. Click here to look at before and after pictures of some other work we've done on the house and read about being plastered here!

More good news: I've updated and proofed the Palace Garden repeating design with the new colours I came up with for the original tiled version of the pattern a while back. Here they are on the cotton twill fabric (which is lovely and my new favourite) from spoonflower:

Palace Garden | Aubergine

Palace Garden | Lapis Lazuli and Jaipur Pink

Palace Garden | Cinnamon and Indigo

If you'd like to order this pattern on fabric, wallpaper or giftwrap, these colours are available in my spoonflower shop here.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Cinnamon

Palace Garden in Cinnamon

ÝA new pouch made from Palace Garden in Cinnamon (on linen-cotton).
ÞI'm getting a bit of a collection of these; after a bit more practice I think I'll open a shop.

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige - Palace Garden in Aubergine - Palace Garden in Indigo - Pines & Cranes

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Here are some of the March pictures from over at Instagram: rearranging vector elements from this journal design - windmill sails at sunset - a print for spring and last but not least.. Pines & Cranes has made the Spoonflower Hot Sellers list :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden: New Colours

Some lovely new colours for Palace Garden! From the top: indigo, aubergine, cinnamon, lapis lazuli and Jaipur pink; available here.

22nd September: Thanks Spoonflower for featuring the little pouch here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden Repeat

Hi all, hope you had a good weekend! We had a relaxed one with a bit of shopping, a bit of wine and plenty of reading and sleeping!

I've been meaning to make a repeat pattern partner to this design for quite a while now and last week I had the perfect opportunity to concentrate my efforts with the hand drawn design contest. There were over 500 entries this week, the competition over at spoonflower is growing fast!

Palace Garden Repeat

Details of Palace Garden Repeat - click to view larger!

I'm planning on reworking the original too, as soon as I have enough time; so if any of you have had your eye on the colours currently available, now's the time to grab some!

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Update 2014: You can read about the new colours for this pattern here; they're available to order here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Bees & Blooms

Bees & Blooms - Medieval Woodcut

What says summer better than lying in the grass hearing bees going about their work? As you've probably read, these indispensable pollinators have mysteriously been in trouble for the last few years. A couple of new studies published this week have helped to establish that a certain group of nerve agent pesticides are a large part of that puzzle but there are things that we can do to help! Buzz About Bees have a list of 10 simple things you can do, even if it's just buying local honey and scattering a few wildflower seeds on your lawn.

The bees shown here are adapted from my Medieval Woodcut design. I've made a repeat pattern with them which you can find on fabric, wrapping paper and wallpaper here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Love your weeds!

Butterflies is the subject for the new Spoonflower contest with a palette limited to just these six colours (I missed yellow!):



It did show me though how habitual my colour use has become and that's the whole idea right? I quite like that it's a pattern that would never have come about if left entirely to me! If you have a spare second, please click through and vote for it :)

Tree-hugger's Lawn

Tree-hugger's Lawn Details - click for larger view.

This weedy design was inspired by the idea of leaving a bit of your garden for wild, native plants to grow.If you're not a lover of weeds but would like to attract more butterflies to your outside space, there are loads of websites about which flowers butterflies will be attracted to - either for nectar or as a food source for their caterpillars. These small, natural areas add up fast to increase the available habitat for local wildlife!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware