Jo Brown's news and thoughts.

Colour mixing for textiles

4/4/2024

I am working on my next set of printed fabrics, and I am using some 'found' fabrics. In keeping with my Work With What You've Got ethos, I am using some fabrics that were the leftovers from someone else's projects- so not my choices really. Lots of neutrals, and purple! Not my usual choices of colours. It is stretching me a bit to make the colours work together.
I spent all of yesterday morning mixing colours, out of my comfort zone.
Really, I find purple scary.
Here are some examples of my experiments mixing dyes yesterday at the wonderful @eastsideprint_brighton smudged onto the backing cloth.
I am using transparent mixes of inks, so the base colour really affects the result - the sludgy colours on the green swatch are the same colours as on the purple and cream swatches. (I could use opaque inks but I wanted the pattern to sink in rather than sit on top of the fabric)
The bubblegum pink, red and bright blues are from my previous projects - the colours I usually go for
Will let you see the results soon.
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Textile design: tea towels by Jo Brown

1/31/2024

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folded illustrated tea towels by Jo Brown

Lucky Cats and Happy Bunnies Tea Towels by Jo Brown

My second range of tea towels are now in my shop. Some of the first range are now out of stock, but the designs may reappear later (LoveCats, I'm looking at you...)
The latest range includes the brand new Lucky Cats, and Happy Bunnies. Perfect for adding fun and colour to your kitchen, or for a housewarming gift.
All printed in the UK on 309gsm half Panama cotton, really thick and sturdy, with great print quality, the colours are great!
These are my first homewares prints, although I have produced a lot of fashion prints in the past.

folded tea towels with cat illustrations by Jo Brown tied with ribbon

LoveCats Tea towel from 1st range by Jo Brown

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Tea Towels by Jo Brown

12/28/2022

I have a new range of products in my shop - tea towels.
So, maybe you don’t know this about me, but I trained as a textile designer, and I specialised in print. I learned how to do patterns in repeat, the old fashioned way, with tracing paper and cutting up designs. Yes folks, it was pre computer days….. Now you can do it fairly easily with photoshop, which is great for block repeats. (where the pattern repeats directly below and beside itself in a regular pattern)

BUT the thing is, I never did like patterns in repeat. I always wanted them to look as if they weren’t in repeat. so i would either do a huge design so that it wasn’t obvious where the repeat was, or make it a brick or half drop repeat so it wasn’t quite as obvious.