A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025: X is for Fluevog X Anna Sui

 Day 24 of "Blogging from A to Z" with my annual (going on eight years) challenge of drawing Fluevog Shoes and creating repeating patterns with them. Eventually, these designs wind up on Redbubble and Spoonflower.

Today's footwear is the Fluevog Sugarcandy X Anna Sui

In repeat

available on both Spoonflower and Redbubble

The A to Z Challenge is held every April. The challenge is to blog through the alphabet every Monday through Saturday. The “A” theme is blogged on April 1st, “B” April 2nd, etc.
More about the challenge can be found on the official Blogging from A to Z Challenge Blog.
Here's the link to the Master List, with all the official participants (link)

The Peach Fuzz Challenge!

Time I entered another Spoonflower Challenge. 

VOTE HERE! The results are in! 

there were 1800 entries

This one involved Pantone's Color of the Year for 2024.

Peach Fuzz!

We were limited to this palette, plus tints:

I recolored a leopard print from my archives:

see the winners

I already uploaded this to Redbubble, so you can have all the things in Peach Fuzz Leopard ;-)

Redbubble Link

What do you think of Peach Fuzz? Would you wear this color?

Linking up with

Shelbee's On the Edge

#AtoZchallenge 2023: P is for Petrella

The Fluevog Petrella

My P entry for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, 2023 edition.
(Don't know what I'm talking about? Read this intro post or click here for the official hub).

#AtoZchallenge 2021: R is for Rema

 

When I first sketched a shoe with this same leopard print...

I wondered why it was such a strange looking interpretation of leopard...

Until I zoomed in close!

The black shapes are Fluevogs and signature hearts! What will they think of next?

This month, I will be blogging my way through the alphabet,

as part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

One Fluevog shoe at a time.

 Masks! Now a daily necessity.

VIDA Linear Leopard Mask

Two years ago, I posted about this print:

Later, I did a fun experiment on a version using the Photoshop Filter: Glowing Edges

It kind of looks like lace!

VIDA (a print on demand site) was having a special sale, so I uploaded the above. 
I like it!

Paper Weavings and a Carnivorous Plant Toile

I've been diligently creating my detritus paper weaves every morning, whether they get posted to Instagram or not.

This latest set is a mixture of leopard, a ditsy, and strips from a print I called Tropical Goth (link)

I became fond of the bits of botanical drawings in the cut strips:

I really liked how they looked on the white ground and felt the motifs would make a great toile print, minus the palm fronds. [Below are "outtakes" from work. I was testing out the colors to get the correct balance of grays. The dark is the rectangle defining the repeat of the print].

Et voila!

Linking up with:
Michelle's Creative Compulsions

Paper Weavings from Day Job Detritus

Before this year's A-Z, I started doing paper weavings from reject printouts of my pattern designs at the day job. (I am a surface designer for a mass-market underwear and loungewear company).
I mentioned the process in the post about the Fluevog Faith.

First weaving, January 23:

View this post on Instagram

Got a #weaving idea this AM during my commute: use "reject" printouts of panty design combos from work. Fun! Now how do I get it to hold together? 🤔 #pattermixing #annembray

A post shared by anne m bray (@annembray) on Jan 23, 2019 at 9:47am PST

How did I solve my "hold it together" dilemma? Sticking a 4x3" mailing label on the back!

I diligently did this every morning through the first week of April,
until I started getting to work too late to be stealth about it.

This is the last batch, April 2-5:

[click on images to embiggen]

Parameters developed over the course of the project (as they tend to do for me):

• Mix a women's panty print with a men's lounge pant print
• Try to make the mixture as uncoordinated as possible

Here's a Camo / Blue Ditsy set from March 6-21:

I've got a lot reject camo printouts on large 11x17 printouts -- I was not having success color matching to a printed garment.

In fact, I gave up, since it became unnecessary.

I've since had to do two other colorways of the camo with even more reject printouts.

I could do a whole camo weave series at this point!

Conclusion: camo is hard to color match, especially to Pantone standard chips.

I've submitted this series to be part of the Otis 100 Projects. We'll see if anything happens.
I'm also committed to get back to weaving detritus. It's relaxing!

Spoonflower Limited Palette Challenge

The colors we were allowed to use:

First idea, pattern from my Goth "collection" [a collection currently with only two designs]:

[Currently displayed ginormous so can see design -- maybe that's OK]
link to Spoonflower

Then I saw this on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A lovely lady I met last week was so kind as to let me take a photo of the fabric on her vintage blouse. #floral #inspo #bohostyle #bohodecor #instastyle #textiledesign #design #textiles #textiledesigner #happy #repeatpattern #colorful #ss2020 #fashiondesigner #fashiondesign #trendresearch #nofilter

A post shared by schauleh vivian sahba (@bouclesf) on Jan 15, 2019 at 9:03am PST

Which led me to this:

link to Spoonflower

   And I thought, what if I try the limited palette on it?

link to Spoonflower

Voilà, my Challenge entry!

Now it's time to vote -- CLICK HERE
Spoonflower randomizes the entries, and you will have 762 to wade through!
Thanks in advance!

Linking this up with
Catherine's #ShareAllLinkup
and
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week

Party Leopard, Dialed Down

Remember "Party Leopard" from last year (almost exactly)?

I created it during a class demo during my Digital Design for Textiles class at Otis.

I then took the file to work, reduced the colors, toned it WAY down, added texture with a Photoshop filter, 

and put it in some potential panty combos.

Today, I finalized the art for production. The panty six-pack will be available at Costco Japan around August/September!

Party Leopard

Meet "Party Leopard" my newest print-from-a-class-demo artwork:

I didn't think I'd come up with anything exotic this week, I surprised myself!

At the end of class, I took a photo of the classroom's Cintiq monitor and posted it to Instagram, as a joke.
Lo and behold, a Facebook Friend loved it and wanted yardage!
I then had the task of putting it into repeat, because it was an unplanned combination of 3 different repeats.

Here are the elements:
Leopard forms the topmost layer of lavender ground and transparent leopard motifs.
It came from this demo file:

Next are the purple dots, from this file (in class, we all created a dot 1/2 drop from scratch):

And, at the bottom layer, is a lovely print that I've been using to demo Photoshop's Offset Filter.
I call it The Tie Dye Eggs:

I found this dumpster diving at the Otis Fashion Campus in the early 00s,
when they were situated at the Cal Mart in downtown LA.

IT EVEN HAS COLORWAYS!!!!

Recently, while doing a Google Image "tie dye" search, I discovered it online!
Had to "Pin" it! [Alas, the Pin link is not good. Boohoo]

So yes, the Party Leopard can [soon] be found on Spoonflower* if you want yardage.

And Redbubble* for most of the Redbubble things:

* I get a small commission from Spoonflower and Redbubble on purchased items.

Party on, Leopard People!

Did someone say Conga Line? Taking this party to Shelbee's #SpreadTheKindness and Catherine's #SaturdayShare
Catherine introduced me to Redbubble, and I'm forever grateful!