The Crafter's Guide to Patterns: Create Your Own Hand-Printed Designs

Imagine impressing your friends and family with bespoke wrapping paper that comes straight off your home printer! The Crafter’s Guide to Patterns includes 20 free motifs and also shows you how to create a pattern out of virtually any image. Whether designing your own wall stencil, or hand-printing one of the supplied motifs onto your greeting cards and cushion covers, this book gives you all the information you need. In The Crafter’s Guide to Patterns step-by-step tutorials show the reader how to design well-constructed patterns by hand, while interviews with other crafters pepper the book offering advice on using their patterns and thereby equipping readers with all the skills they need to unleash their creativity. Galleries with patterns applied to a range of objects provide a wealth of inspiration and ideas to the reader. 20 motifs are printed in the back of the book and are also available to download so that readers can adapt and use these to create their own patterns. The practical advice in this book is aimed at the large readership of creative crafters who are brimming with image ideas, but are unfamiliar with the skills needed to turn those images into gorgeous patterns. The Crafter’s Guide to Patterns covers everything from choosing motifs and colours to creating a range of different patterns, whether borders or full scale repeats. Once you’ve got through the design basics, the book goes on to show you how your patterns can be applied on everything from fabric (think bespoke table runners) to stationery, gift wrap, and stencils!

About the Author :
Jessica Swift is a full-time artist, pattern designer, and author based in Portland, Oregon. Her patterns have been licensed by a variety of companies for fabric, stationery, rugs and much more. Jessica co-authored her first book last year and has also contributed to a number of books on pattern design, lettering, and the creative industry. She also shares her ideas, inspirations, and patterns on her website www.jessicaswift.com.

Review :
 This crafter-focussed book is a superb intro to the magical world of surface pattern design. Creating decorative prints is a burgeoning area for the hobbyist and pro alike, due to technological advances – the internet for sourcing design inspiration, computers for a technical assist, and the possibility of affordable small-quantity print-runs from print bureaus. Jessica Swift’s book is an easy-access lightning guide for the uninitiated or technically timid. It teaches the fundamentals of pattern design, then spotlights crafty applications – such as stamping, screen printing, stencilling, and cyanotyping (a photographic printing process). There is a handy look-in on digitizing designs, but this is not the main emphasis of the book.   Jessica Swift aims to train the reader to see the world through the eyes of a pattern designer. In the book’s intro, she says -  of the important concept of the pattern tile -, “Once you learn and understand how patterns are constructed, I’m willing to bet you ‘ll try to deconstruct every pattern you see in the world from now on.” I can vouch for this!  Being a pattern repeat detective can provide puzzles to solve while queuing or in waiting rooms.    The book is in lavish full-colour photography. A delightful feature is interviews with “name” designers from around the world, such as Heather Moore (Skinny LaMinx). Discover what makes them tick! The book is divided into three sections – Planning Patterns (pattern design bootcamp), Using Patterns (various applications – with tips), and Resources (20 copyright-free motifs with QR codes, printing and image resources, useful websites, plus an index). There is surface- and technique - specific advice aplenty.   Think of Jessica Swift’s book as a portal to the wonderful world of pattern design. It is ideal for gifting. May 2015 This book is all about creating patterns by hand. It's jam-packed with inspiration and guide for making patterns by different methods, including rubber blocks, cyanotype and stencilling, plus how to build up a pattern repeat and the different types of repeats. It also includes 20 free, striking motifs for you to use. So whether you want to design your own wall stencil, or handprint one of the supplied motifs in the book on to your greeting cards and cushion covers, this book gives you all the information you need to create a masterpiece! December 2014 The Crafter's Guide to Patterns by Jessica Swift includes 20 free motifs and also shows you how to create a pattern cut out of virtually any image. Whether designing your own wall stencil or hand-printing one of the supplied motifs onto your greetings cards and cushion covers, this book gives you all the information you need. The motifs are printing in the back of the book and are also available to download so that readers can adapt and use these to create their own patterns. July 2015 Written by illustrator, Jessica Swift, this is another book in the ‘Crafter’s Guide’. Here we look at creating hand-printed designs by learning all about patterns and repeats. The book is split into three sections - Planning Patterns, Making Patterns and Using Patterns. Planning Patterns starts at a very basic level, looking at how you can get inspiration from around you. This includes a note on copyright and what to be careful about when planning a design. The three main motif styles of geometric, floral and novelty are introduced and this section is very useful, as each has a diagram and an illustration of that pattern being used in a design. Making Patterns includes step-by-step tutorials on making the straightforward three main repeats – straight, half-drop and brick. There are lessons on stamp carving, cutting stencils, cyanotope printing plus another fantastic tutorial on how to go digital and create a repeat pattern in Photoshop and Illustrator. I followed the tutorial in Photoshop, convinced it would go wrong, and it worked perfectly. The Using Patterns section concentrates more on practical printing applications for making cards, gift wrap and patterned homeware. If you are looking at creating patterns from a textile design point-of-view, then this part is probably of limited appeal. However, there are tutorials on several techniques that would prove useful in any kind of textile art application. It is a useful book to have if you are thinking of designing textiles with repeat patterns as a clear overview is provided and the design tutorials are fantastic.