Strawberry love...

I have been working on a lot of pattern collections lately and I have LOVED it so much. The more I make, the more I understand about the tile, the colours & the repeat. Today I have been working on my second assignment for Lilla Roger's Bootcamp. We were asked to design a repeat pattern for the bolt fabric market, with the theme Jell-O. Or as the English say: Jelly. 

We have a song in our house that we sing often. It goes like this: Jelly-belly, jelly-belly, come and have a swim... Yes by golly when the tide comes in... I think it dates back to the days of Adam's granddad, but I am not entirely sure... 

I can't stand jelly. I think it's one of those truly disgusting things, something I wouldn't ever eat. I don't like wobbly things (except for my own tummy, which is wobbly and lovely...) and I am not too fond of sugar. But I still loved this theme. I have a little girl who loves jelly. She can't get enough of it and there are many stories in our family that involve jelly. 

That's what this post is about. How my designs always have a hidden story... Something that is not really important to anyone but me. My portfolio to me reads like a diary...

 

Jelly makes me think about my children's great grandmother, who we used to call Oneis. I remember Olive sitting on her lap in her wheelchair and how we went to a café in a garden centre and Olive had the biggest portion of jelly known to man. She was only about one and a half, and it must have been the equivalent of a weekly dose of sugar. 

It also takes me back a couple of years, when my little girl broke her nose in a horrendous accident (running full speed into a barrier over a sand track). For nearly a week she was on the sofa, motionless. She didn't speak and she refused to eat anything, except for the tiny pots of jelly that I spooned into her mouth four or five times a day... 

And then there are the strawberries...

I'm allergic to strawberries. It was a mild and innocent allergy when I was a kid. I would eat strawberries and get a rash. I went for years without eating any strawberries, I last had some when I was in my twenties and had a bad reaction so I never ate them again. But recently I have had anaphylactic shocks after digesting only the tiniest amount of strawberry. A couple of seeds, some strawberry infusion & a bit of jam. It was scary and I am now avoiding any sweets, jams, drinks that are red. Strawberries are banned in our house...

So there you have it... a strawberry & jelly pattern. I started off with some motifs and then worked on the tile. I added the dark background later on. I have a thing for dark brown fabric. Not sure what the story is there...

And then I did a couple of coordinates... I like the simple strawberry pattern... And a version with a lighter background, which would look great on a lunchbox or a kids apron...