Umbrella prints trimmings competition

A while ago I bought myself a packet of fabric trimmings from Umbrella trimmings for their annual competition. I have seen entries over the years and have always admired the fabrics and prints so thought it would be a great opportunity to try and have a go at creating something. I started on a few ideas quite a while ago, initially thinking I would make something from the actual samples which seems the obvious thing to do. Tested a few things out and as per usual couldn't make a decision! I chose to scan the fabric samples in and began to use them on screen within my illustrations. These are the initial scans of the fabric samples, which I actually really liked, I often scan in fabric and use for textures etc within my freelance work.

Here is also a picture of the original fabric samples that were sent originally, really liked this pack, always drawn to green and loved the dark green fabric in particular

So then I worked on selecting sections of a simple (quite random) sketch that I had done in my sketchbook .

From this I then got quite carried away.... I thought it would be nice to show these ideas as a set of prints - true to my background as a surface pattern designer I tend to always see things as repeated motifs. So I mocked up a board showing my repeated designs of which are all icons from the original illustration and showed how these may appear on a series of items like clothing and stationary. Have to admit I could of carried on with this, It got quite addictive! I made lots of prints all of which include the scanned in prints either within the shapes and as backgrounds. Was really nice to work on something with no boundaries and I'm really pleased with how this has turned out! Here is my final board!

And these further boards just show the prints just on dresses and on their own.

Finally some of the all over prints...

Looking forward to seeing the other entries!