Blog - Cotton & Flax

Print and Pattern

Patterns at PDX

PDX carpet

Just got back from a trip to Portland, Oregon (my hometown, and favorite place on Earth). I took tons of photos that I’ll be sharing here soon, but I wanted to post these two patterns that I spotted in the Portland airport. On the left, a couple awesome wallets from the new Pendleton store that’s outside security. On the right, the awesomely kitschy carpet that’s all over the airport… I have a strange fondness for it.

PDX carpet
The carpet in PDX is so quirky, I’m sad they’ll be tearing it out and replacing it. Looking forward to sharing more snippets of my trip: I took a few tours of friends’ studios, and visited my favorite fabric stores in Portland, and I’m excited to hear what you think.

Patterns all day, every day.

Cotton & Flax Patterns

August was a busy month at Cotton & Flax! As I prepare for the launch of the Fall/Winter line later this month, I have been working diligently to create a new set of patterns to add to the Cotton & Flax collection. You may have seen me posting some in progress shots of my patterns on Instagram (I’m @erin_dollar (edit: make that @cottonandflax) in case you want to follow me!). When I am developing patterns, I spend a lot of time drawing in my sketchbook, creating hand carved stamps to try out new shapes, and scanning and editing those patterns in Photoshop.

In the next couple weeks, I hope to share a little video showing some of my drawing process for these patterns, but until then, I hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek into how these patterns come to life.

Developing New Patterns

ink drawing - developing patterns

I’ve been working on some new patterns this week. This is one of my favorite parts of the process of making printed textiles, as I get to spend hours dreaming up new designs, and experimenting with inks and stamps and my favorite brushes and pens. Right now I’m working on creating larger versions of the many patterns I’ve sketched over the last few weeks, and I’m excited to see them come to life.

I create many (but not all) of my patterns by drawing directly onto tracing paper. I do this for a couple reasons: first, because I like to tape a piece of graph paper underneath, so that I can have a grid from which to work. While all of my textile patterns are hand drawn, I try to find ways to create patterns with some amount of regularity in spacing, and graph paper keeps me from getting wildly out of scale in my drawings. Second, I love being able to place the finished tracing paper patterns over a piece of unprinted fabric, and be able to get a glimpse at what the final product might look like.

I’m hoping to share a big batch of new patterns here on the blog in the coming week!