Driftwood

Driftwood is a collection that I designed for Makower UK recently. It's a nautical-inspired collection in muted colours and the perfect print for creating a beach house vibe.

The main print is called Cove and shows a pretty harbour scenic in tones of blue, cream and grey. It's inspired by the coastal villages of Cornwall with its quaint cottages and lighthouses in a lino cut style.

Beach huts are the quintessential English seaside icon so I created these quirky beach huts on a cream background. Each one is slightly different to each other with contrasting door colours and nautical items decorating their exteriors.

Seashells are a great image for a nautical group and naturally work in this Lino cut style. I've also mixed a few seagrasses and seaweeds with this crowded shells design.

These cute sealife creatures make a great spaced design and are perfect for using on smaller crafting projects or as a lining fabric for bags and purses.

This seagrass print comes in a pretty sage colour, also great as a co-ordinate to the other designs.

The Cove scenic harbour design has also been designed in a more multi colour palette, including sage green and turquoise.

You couldn't have a nautical collection without a sailboat design so I designed this one on the open sea with the odd lighthouse scattered around.

The Ripples print makes a great texture and looks like the waves on the sea. It's great for using as a binding on a quilt or a lining for a beach bag.

The Cottages design is so cute and a nod to the hillside villages around the South-west coast of the UK.

Marine moodboards

I really enjoyed creating the designs for the February pattern challenge set by @melanie.johnsson. The challenge was inspired by days at the seaside and encouraged us to create a cohesive collection using a complimentary colour palette. Now that the challenge has finished I decided to see how well those patterns co-ordinated by creating some moodboards and I'm really pleased with the result!

The first board includes the crab print and the mermaid scales in a pleasing palette of blue, turquoise and coral.

The second board shows the multi colour shell print and the water design and includes a bright yellow and a navy in the colour palette.

The third board includes the wild grasses print and the wave print. This uses a simpler, more sophistacated colour palette and I like the inclusion of soft greys and cream to compliment the blues.

The fourth board includes the kites and the splash design. These are both fun prints in a bright colour palette that would work well in a kid's bedroom.

The fifth board includes the floral print and the splash design in coral pink.

All these prints are available to buy by-the-metre on a variety of fabrics or on ready-made items in my Spoonflower shop.

February pattern challenge

 For the month of February I took part in the @melanie.johnsson pattern challenge on Instagram, which was a lot of fun! The theme was inspired by the seaside and I decided on a colour palette of soft blues, turquoises and corals. The first challenge was the word 'shells'. For this design I used a hand-drawn outline style with softly shaded colours in each shell.

This print would look great as a wallpaper in a beach house.

The word for the second challenge was 'picnic' so I chose to create a loose floral pattern which could be used on a picnic rug. 

I love the way that the print matches the tableware below.

The third prompt word was 'mermaid' so I chose to create a pretty mermaid scales pattern and incorporated both the coral colours and the turquoise colours into the design.

This would look fabulous as a wallpaper in a little girl's room.

The fourth prompt word was 'tides' and so I created this wave design in shades of blue and turquoise.

It would look great as wallpaper on a feature wall in a bathroom.

The fifth prompt word was 'crustaceans' so I chose to create a crab design, surrounded by coral.

Does this work as a bedroom wallpaper?! It might give you nightmares... but I love it!

The sixth prompt word was 'pool' so I channeled my inner Hockney and created this stylised water print.

It works well as a wallpaper print in this fresh white bedroom setting.

The seventh prompt word was 'wildflowers' so I decided to create this print of silhouette wild grasses in shades of soft blues and white.

I love how it looks as a wallpaper against this blue sofa.

The eighth prompt word for the challenge was 'kites' so I created these breezy kites on a cloud background.

This would look great on a feature wall in a child's bedroom.

The final prompt word for the pattern challenge was 'splash' and so I decided to create this paint splash print using the colours from the palette on a white background.

It would be the perfect print on a wallpaper in a child's bathroom!

All of these designs have been added to my Spoonflower shop which you can see here.