Project wins KCI Rambus Award in Innovation

I was excited to learn last Friday that the Picking Strawberries on Gold Mountain workshop series won First Place in the KCI Rambus 2010 Innovation Award. I conducted this workshop series in four classes at two schools last spring. It is a wonderful honor to have the project celebrated in this way.

Pattern Repeat!

I will be teaching a digital textile workshop in a few weeks and wanted to post a step by step on how to create a repeat pattern the old fashioned way.

STEPS:
1. Draw a design in the middle of your page. Be sure your drawing does not touch the edges of your paper!
2. Once you finish this drawing, cut the paper in quarters.
3. Move halves to opposite sides so outside edges are now facing eachother.

4. Move top two pieces to the bottom so now all outside edges are facing inward.5. Tape together (tape pieces together from the back).

6. Fill in the middle section with the rest of your pattern. You can see below that I filled in the new center (the former edges of the paper) with a leaf, more children, clouds and butterflies. Now I have a perfectly repeating pattern tile. 7. Here is the pattern below.8. On the computer, using either Photoshop or SumoPaint, you can use the Offset Filter to create this repeat pattern effect without having to cut your drawing at all.