Last weekend, our talented Ink & Arrow team was fortunate enough to head over to Capital Quilts in Gaithersburg, MD. After the owner, Alison discussed the idea with her sales manager Kevin, the arrangements were made to visit and be part of this great event! It was a wonderful opportunity to give insight into the creation of Ink & Arrow Fabrics and of course, give away some pretty awesome swag!

One of the initiatives at Ink & Arrow Fabrics is our Ink & Arrow Road Trip!

 

We support our local quilt shops and enjoy meeting with the customers who love Ink & Arrow as much as we do (well, not sure if it’s possible to ❤ it as much as we do…)

 

Kevin Driscoll (Sales Manager) Alicia Dujets (Artist) and Cyndi Hershey (Creative Manager)

As an employee-owner and designer in our NY studio, Alicia has developed several collections for the Ink & Arrow brand. I’ve asked Alicia to share some of her presentation from last weekend as a contributor to this blog…

It was an absolute pleasure to be able to tell the story of how I came to be so involved in textile design without ever having studied it in all of my years of art school. To give you some background, I planned on being a freelance illustrator for years and went to graduate school to further develop my personal style which is one of, if not the most important key factors in being a successful illustrator. The work needs to be recognizable enough so that people know it’s coming from your hand and unfortunately, I struggled for years to maintain a definitive style that I was happy with. Since I was so focused on being an illustrator, the one thing I never considered was that I could actually use this gift of stylistic flexibility to excel at other jobs in the arts. Being a textile designer gives me the opportunity to hop from project to project (sometimes in a matter of minutes!) and completely change the way I am working on the drop of a dime. I think it’s safe to say that I was made for this job!

One of my favorite parts of being a designer is getting to experiment with a variety of drawing techniques to fit specific projects that I am working on. On top of that, developing collections for Ink & Arrow comes naturally to me, it’s been in my blood all along in the sense that I am able to create designs that are similar to the types of art that inspire me the most. I’ve always loved stylistic drawings and paintings that are slightly skewed versions of reality (think: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, Katarina Vavrova), illustration with a dark twist (think: Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, Edmund Dulac), modern illustrations with simple linework and minimal color (think: Heather Gatley, Jen Corace, Lucy Joy), and even beautiful hand lettering and well made fonts! Additionally, if negative space can be used in a smart way in a piece of art then that’s always a bonus in my book. It may sound cheesy, but it really is a dream come true to be able to be a part of such a fun, playful, and at times beautiful brand – it’s the perfect mix and I truly appreciate the variety of content that we put out. To that end, I can say for certain that the more fabulous projects that I see people making with our fabric, the more motivated I am to keep the designs coming!  ~ Alicia

 

A wonderful crowd enjoying the presentation.  As you can see, the event was fun and informative.

 

 

 

                  

We are proud of I&A, we are excited to see what all of you make. Part of our website is “Your Ink & Arrow” and we would love to feature your creative projects. Click on the link above, click on the submit your photo button,  and let us all admire your fabulous Ink & Arrow Fabrics project!!!

Ok – so… we are doing our Friday Giveaway a little differently this week.   Click on the link below and follow the instructions – we want you to win a bag with lots of goodies in it!!!   Click below & follow the instructions 🙂

WIN AN INK & ARROW SUPER GOODIE BAG!!!