'Bitsy and the Unicorn Princess' - Plush pattern design for Spoonflower!

'Bitsy and the Unicorn Princess' (cut + sew toy) ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

The Challenge: Spoonflower asked their design faithful to create a cut-&-sew pattern to make a plush mythical creature toy. The sewing pattern, with instructions, was to fit on a fat quarter of linen-cotton canvas (27" x 18").
My Solution: When I researched Mythical Creatures I found a few options to explore. First was a mermaid, but I had just designed one for the counting challenge. The other natural choice… a unicorn. I researched horses for body shape and drew a few with the profile of a realistic horse but when it came down to it, my original rough sketch looked like more fun.
I did my usual process to complete my illustration:  1. rough sketches in my sketchbook  2. then photographed them with my iPad  3. drew over my sketches to clean them up in the Adobe Ideas App. (this converts them to a vector image)  4. opened the sketches in Photoshop and chose a color palette  5. assembled the icons  6. finally lay out my icons on 27x18" file with a logo and cut lines.

Bitsy 

The Unicorn Princess

Voting opened on  Thursday, February 19th and continues until Thursday morning February 26th. Please Vote Here!

The Earth Day 'Everyday' Tote

The Earth Day 'cut & sew' bag...
Spoonflower started their challenge this week with this statement… 'Did you know that the United States alone uses approximately 100 billion new plastic bags every single year?'

The Earth Day 'Everyday' Tote
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

thin plus (deep sea)
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.  

dotty dot natural (deep sea)
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
 All Rights Reserved. 

dotty dot natural
 (lt.  aqua, deep sea + leaf)
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
 All Rights Reserved. 

thin plus 
(guacamole)
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved. 

  To honor Earth Day 2014, Spoonflower asked their army of artists to create a cut & sew pattern for a reusable shopping bag.
  The first decision that I made was to pick the fabric that I wanted to use. Fabric strength for a bag is important so I chose Heavy Cotton Twill fabric. My 1-yard pattern is 58" x 36".
  Next, I wanted to design a large useful bag, one that I would use when my girls and I go to the farmers market on Sunday. I like the hobo style and first designed an outline of  the shape that I wanted to use, then copied it and pasted it on my 58" x 36" Photoshop file.
  The fabric design is a simple pattern taken from my india ink paintings of dots and pine branch bits that were scanned and manipulated in Photoshop.   The 'thin plus' pattern was designed in the same way.
  The layout of the logo was designed and placed, and finally the directions for assembling the bag.
  I can't wait to get my sample pattern for this one, I will post the process and final bag here when it arrives!!
  Voting starts on Thursday, April 17th, 2014. Please Vote!