I’ve been travelling for work for the last week, just got back, and haven’t had a chance to do much of anything in the garden yet. BUT, I did do some garden-related design, which I thought might interest some of you? Making garden art is a great way to get even MORE delight out of your garden.
I love to take photographs in my garden, as I’m guessing you all know by now, but I’m also trying to learn more about drawing botanicals, and in particular, I’m interested in using those drawings in textile design. A few years ago, I did a design featuring South Asian-inspired block print trees, combined with unicorns (because my daughter is a huge fan of them).
I print my designs at Spoonflower, a custom fabric print-on-demand company — even if you don’t draw yourself, if you like unusual, independent designers, and can sew a little, you can easily make fabulous and unique items for your home, your clothing, etc.
With an iPad app like Procreate, you can take your kids’ drawings, for example, and throw them up onto a fabric with a repeating design, which makes for exceptional grandparent gifts. If you don’t sew, they actually also sell ready-made home goods (which cost a little more).
So I took 30 minutes this morning to iron and sew up a little table runner for our Easter brunch. One yard of my Unicorn Woods fabric in Buttermilk Yellow, printed up in linen-cotton canvas ($29 + shipping). I just cut it in half down the length, and then sewed those together and hemmed it.
I should be able to tell you the length of my table, but I don’t know off-hand. It seats 4 along the side, so maybe that’s an 8′ table? 10′? Whatever it is, the finished runner hangs just a little over the edge; at some point, I might add a dark green fringe to the ends, just so it hangs a little lower and nicely.
And it *is* a directional print; which might bother some people, but that doesn’t bother me.
It’s pretty cute! I like how it picks up the yellow of the forsythias from my garden. So Easter. 
