About Me

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I am a studio artist and textile designer. My work swirls around among art, design, and the joy of making things. I founded LFN Textiles Artists Ribbons in 2002, and have been designing these fairly wonderful ribbons for 8 years now. They are distributed for the wholesale market exclusively by Renaissance Ribbons, and are available at retail on my website, www.lfntextiles.com, and nationwide through fine fabric stores, gift shops. My tapestries are available through a number of galleries across the country as well. See the links section for contact information.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

fabrics to come from LFN Textiles

Yesterday I signed an agreement with Troy Fabrics to have my designs produced as quilt weight fabrics in their Riverwoods collection.  Troy produced top quality fabrics with up to 16 screens per design for very subtle color gradations.  They are based in Chicago, and also distribute a number of other fabric lines.  There is something really comforting about working with a home-town company.

But what I am happiest about is that they love everything I do, and the first collection will be based on my recent vegetables group of designs and debut at Quilt market in October.  Here's a sample of what is to come:

 
 
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 I have always been stubborn about my artistic style and point of view, and I have been reluctant to design anything "for the market" if not also for myself. I like to do straightforward patterns but also love to do quirky ones.  Tomatoes was my very first ribbon design:  I thought it was really nice to contemplate a luxurious fabric like woven ribbon with images of kitchen vegetables.  it will be great to see Tomatoes, herbs, lettuces, green beans = a cornucopia of veg -- made up into tablecloths, but also quilts and maybe shirts too. 

We will be doing plenty of other subjects in upcoming collections, so watch this space.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

From ribbon to voile! thanks to Spoonflower

As a textile designer, I often license my designs across several formats -- ribbon, fabric, dinnerware.  Usually it is me doing the legwork to find the clients for licensing, but I had a very pleasant surprise last fall.  I have a very large portfolio of fabric designs on Spoonflower, and the occasional sale of my designs through that is gratifying.  Some of the patterns I post on Spoonflower are based on ribbons I have designed.
 

Here is my design from several years ago for my Dahlia Ribbon.  I love it: it is heavy satin with very beautifully articulated details in the weaves. I redesigned it into an allover pattern and uploaded it to Spoonflower,. 

Last fall I got a message from a clothing designer who wanted to order yardage for sampling, and if the samples showed well at the January trade shows, he would want a license so that he could produce it in quantity.  He chose to print on cotton voile, which is a nice summery choice.  For this I earned my designer commission form Spoonflower.

This week he sent me photos of the samples, and indicated they were going ahead with production!  So the license was executed, the fee paid, and ahead we go.  As these shirts are not on the market yet, I can't link to them for you, but it sure was exciting!  As my designs are usually licensed for Home Dec, it is fun to see them as clothing.  Thank you, Spoonflower!