Working away on my new set of prints with great excitement here is a taster of whats to come. I am making a special series of fabrics for quilters which will feature these lovely 'Birds of Galway' prints along with several other corresponding fabrics. the wholes set will be available to buy in store on Mayday.  In the meantime both these bird prints are available from my online shop mariposatextiles.com or my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/MariposaTextiles

maybe Cleo the cat thought the birds were real?

New in!! Dia De los muertos Fabric Day of the Dead

I love Mexico and all things Mexican, this Kona Cotton sugar skull fabric is my latest printed fabric in stock at Mariposatexiles.com.
 This print originates in a drawing from 2007, I was in my first year of college studying textiles. We had to do a final project and having just returned from a holiday in Mexico I thought Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead would be fun.  I created the sugar skull men using life drawings of people I knew. I cut up loads of photocopies and used tons of glue, gouache paint and black marker and made a massive mess in the sitting room of the shared student house I lived in. This was a collage, painting, drawing which I made as a mock up of a repeat textile. This being my first year it of course didn't repeat just right and I made a big mock up out of loads of photocopies stuck together.  This fabric has been dying to get out since then, its embarrassing to admit but I have been meaning to make it into a proper fabric for the last 6 years! Recently, when I started to suffer a bit of a post holiday mental block while starting work on my new range, I decided to finally tackle it. It actually turned out to be quite an epic undertaking fixing it up. I am so delighted with my results its amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes I just used loads of exclamations they are necessary its amazing)  The best bit of all my head is clear, I have been churning out new work like mad. Plus, the small original painting of this has been hanging up in my studio making me feel guilty. hopefully the sugar skull men's hater eyes (which I feel have been reproaching me constantly for having not completed their destiny) will be all beaming!Watch this space for a handbag a.s.a.p. 

or you can make your own creation with this amazing fabric starting from $32/ €25 a yard on my website Dia De Los Muertos Fabric mariposatextiles.com

OMG Velvet!

I have along history with velvet,  I actually had an early childhood aversion to it. This was due to our crazy (pencil throwing arm pinching) music teacher's daughter.  She was a prissy little fecker and our dislike of her was increased by her sadistic father's teaching methods.  I remember she had this velvet dress and we had some sort of tiff ( I'm guessing I was trying to paw the dress which is what I do now when I see velvet eek) anyways it ended in her telling me her dress 'was velvet pure velvet' and implying that in some way we were beneath velvet, unlike her cultured self of course!  My eventual velvet loving came about from my voyages around millions of thrift stores picking up anything that gleamed or had a lovely print and generally was made out of a highly inappropriate fabric for going out dancing.  I swear, I dont know today how I survived all those years of wearing like a wool dress or like polyester ski pants out in a roasting club?  Usually it resulted in me being a stanky redfaced sweatball I had one beautiful 70's brown velvet collared top. omg I loved it! I only eventually had to give it up as the velvet started to look odd and had like worn away in some places and had like odd no doubt sweat induced stains.

My first ever textile print which I had manufactured was on Silk Viscose velvet. I remember it was insanely expensive and because I had no concept of how big a meter was I got 3??? (yes I still have some of this fabric today).  The amazing thing about the silk viscose velvet was that it was perfect as in interiors fabric, I had it on a pretty 1960's chair and it went through the wars with my toddler son not a bother!  Its such an amazing fabric its proper luxury.  I did however find the silk velvet quite hard to sew, so when I discovered that there was a cotton backed velvet I was so excited to try it.  I have to say I am so so happy with the cotton velvet it has a lovely long nape and such a soft silky texture.  It takes color so well and the prints literally glow its now available to but from me with the print of your choice from €114 - $150 a meter (trust me its worth it)  I have a chair upholstered in it and its now my favorite thing!!
Imagine your couch, chair, skirt adorned in my modern colorful prints in stunning cotton velvet. Available exclusively from my website mariposatextiles.com
Cotton Velvet Print of your choice Mariposa Textiles

Fabrics inspired by the Sprog

My older son is obsessed with Dinosaurs, so when Spoonflower held a competition to design kids fabrics last year I was inspired to create a dinosaur fabric especially for him. I also designed prints with hedgehogs which was due to the fact that they are just so damn cute! When I say cute, you wouldn't believe it, I saw a hedgehog in real life! It was eating out of the cat bowl at my back door when I came home one night.  So tiny and beautiful I got down to have a peek and we made eye contact! I know this sounds crazy, but that hedgehog and I, we had a moment. Then he scampered away before I could take a picture little fecker.

The Hedgehog that is featured in the print is actually the work of an anonymous graffiti artist in Berlin. So funny to think about some bad ass hipster graffiti artist doing hedgehogs. I actually went out when I was like 19 with this dodge guy who does graffiti. It was a highly volatile fling, and he was a bit of a dick, but he took me out and gave me a can of spray paint. I must say it was highly entertaining. This was in the 90's so pre artworld explosion of cooler then thou graffiti people. I promise you my crazy scrawl would never have caused a wall to be taken down brick by brick to be saved for ever. It was vandalism really cause it was just really bad writing and messy. I have a feeling I probably wrote like my initials or a mushroom or something dodge (I was 19 come on!).  Now please don't think I was out spraypainting your grannies fence! We went out on the train tracks. It was so exciting sneaking around, this was in a very busy trainyard in California. So even in the middle of the night there were trains moving about. I get goose bumps thinking about it eek!

Anyways enough of my reminiscing about my wayward youth. Nowadays its considered a threat to national security to go anywhere near the trains in the states. I'd probably be suspected of subversive activities eek!

Now back to the kids.  So, my prints are the start of something I am going to explore more. I was thinking of writing a book for kids. As a mother I have read some amazing kids books (most of which have been purchased by my friend Jill as pressies for Iggy thank you Jill!).  The latest one, a lovely Christmas present, is called "Iggy Peck Architect".  Now as a child with a very unique name, Ignatius, Iggy is constantly disappointed when we see displays of tacky ornaments keyrings etc. which have names on them. Iggy is never ever there. He is so excited by this book which features a boy with his name! To make it even more exciting, it is a brilliant book. The illustrations are so lovely, there is a background of graph paper which is so cool I love graph paper!  The story is great, about a little boy named Iggy who is obsessed with building incredibly complicated structures out of say chalk or whatever is at hand.  It has a beautiful illustration of the Golden Gate Bridge at the end (ah home.......).  Now that Iggy can read to himself, this is a firm favourite. Only worry I have is that in the book they spell Ignatius, "Ignacious", as a clever play on words. Lets all hope that he doesn't start spelling his name wrong!

Hopefully I will come up with something inspiring for my children's book that's the key. It must have amazing illustration, style, and a catchy funny story. Another book Iggy loves is 'Wolves' by Emily Gravett. Now to explain how brilliant this is would be difficult, its unlike any other book I've seen, its the story of a rabbit which checks out a book about wolves from the library. Its so incredibly well drawn and put together. She also made another favorite book of his, 'Dogs', which he has loved since he was small. She is a talented illustrator the sketches of dogs are just wonderful, I'm pretty sure pictures of animals is the equivalent of kid-crack. You wouldn't believe how much the baby loves last years kitten calendar.

When Iggy says "Emily Gravett" he has a sort of awe-struck tone. He truly is amazed by the book 'Wolves' its really clever. She has a website http://www.emilygravett.com/  check her out. The 'Dogs' book would be good for 3 year old as a nighttime read and it still continues to entertain at 6. The 'Wolves' book is for 5-6 year olds. Check them out if you have any kids to buy presents for. I think books are great presents and they will be read over and over again. Plus if you dont start them reading now they could end up one of the millions of brainless drones who think that Twilight is a good book. I shudder to think eek.................

My Beautiful New Fabrics!

my new fabric print, Limeade Irish Ghost Estates

My new designs are finally here, I am so excited they are fantastic! I have been working away on my Post-Celtic Tiger series and I now have loads of new fabrics and new designs in stock Silk Crepe de Chine, Cotton Interlock Knit (perfect for Tshirts), Upholstery Cotton Twill, and Linen Cotton Canvas. The Silk Crepe de Chine is so amazing its a proper luxury fabric. I am working on learning to hand roll so hems so I can make some silk scarves woop woop exciting!

I also did a photo shoot for my brand, Mariposa Designs, with the fantastic model, Tanith, she was great and I got some amazing shots which are going to be used in a local magazine! More about that later but here is a preview of them!  I have to say that I had a head start with this with Tanith being so fantastic and excited to be doing the shoot. I had her hair styled by Fanch from SOA Hairstudio which is a super cute salon located here in Galway on the High Street (downstairs opposite Evergreen) I was going for that glossy curly blow dry look and it was great! I also had her makeup done by the fabulous make up artist Hayley from Mac here in Galway in Brown Thomas. She was great I wanted to have the makeup really bright and colourful and I'm delighted with the results! Thank you Fanch! Thank you Hayley! Thank you Tanith!

I know its ages away but I'm already mentally preparing for Christmas trying to think of crafts I can create be all commercial get those christmas shopper millions. I don't know cards? ornaments? garlands? Anyone have any suggestions?

Hi guys!  Welcome to my blog! I've had a strange month for my design work. I lost all my new work when Himself encrypted my hard drive in some strange csi computerfacegeek experiment test for his work.  One day my laptop went caput and as we didnt have the recovery cd. The all so important cd which was needed to decrypt the hard drive it was done gone lost so sad! I had started a new line of fabrics which were aimed at kids inspired by the project selvedge competition(dont get me started on that farce) anyways I have 4 of the designs uploaded on the net so I still have them but the rest is gone gone gone. Himself could not remember what he had done with the cd and we looked for like 2 weeks and I finally just said wipe it I need a computer. Needless to say I have now informed him he can take his work elsewhere like his own computer and if he wants a laptop to experiment with he should buy one!

So the new designs are gone which I have decided to consider a positive thing I limited myself in an attemp to satisfy the whole crappy non professional textile ethos of the competition and even my toned down entry didnt get a look in. So feck it maybe its for the best but in the meantime the ones which were not lost in the digital black hole are still about and I'm selling one of them and getting the rest printed up.  So i'm treating all of this as a well deserved lesson



-never ever alter your asthetic to try and satisfy people that want to shortlist like 4 of the exact same owl prints and prints where the people have things upside down in them
-always always back up my stuff!

-I am not mainstream and never will be sad but true and thank god I would hate to be constrained by what I think people will like!

So as these prints are now all on their lonesome its rather liberating. I used my son Iggy's dinosaurs to make the t rex and the triceratops but I was struck for time and found the bronotsaurous online and it sticks out like a sore thumb they say everything happens for a reason These prints were rough drafts for the fab childrens collection I am working on now which is going to be much much better and more maximalist, more me!  In the meantime I have work to do so better go!