Mastering Your Market begins June 22nd, 2015, and this week we will be sharing the stories of a few of our wonderful alumni and their experiences in this six week workshop. Throughout the course designers focus on the apparel, quilting and home decor markets, producing a small collection of patterns targeted toward different companies in each market. Today we are pleased to share snippets from two of the collections Brittany McLaughlin created during this course.
Brittany’s first collection, Traditional with a Twist, was geared toward the apparel market with the Pendleton customer in mind– “the conservative woman from 30-50 who likes to incorporate trends in a subtle way with a nod to Native American Motifs.”
“Inspired by the quality, intricate patterns of Native American Textiles, this collection provides an interpretation of Spring 2016 megatrend Sartorial: adding a fun quirkiness and a refreshed palette to the Forward Traditionalist. The main print blurs the clean lines inspired by weaving into a textured print interpretation; Coordinate #1 uses a feminine floral pattern reminiscent of beadwork; and Coordinate #2 blends organic, natural vining with the regularity of a background striped effect.”
Brittany’s quilting fabric collection, Americana Classics, was created with P&B Textiles in mind, her target market being “the traditional quilter who loves folk art & Americana.”
“The Americana Classics collection references early American textile patterns and incorporates Stylesight’s Dissonance F/W 2015 Past & Present Trend. These historically-referenced patterns fuse with modern day color trends. Using layers of folky florals, Redware Flowers uses a palette that references redware pottery. Penny Pattern is a modern take on the traditional penny rugs of the civil war era. Needleworked replicates hand cross stitching, but rather than being pictorial it is textural. The palette incorporates the gold from the Redware Flowers as the stitching color; the colonial blue background references a traditional early American palette. This collection is timeless not trendy, vintage-inspired, and neo-nostalgic.
The Mastering Your Market workshop gave me the drive and direction to create 9 patterns for 3 markets in 6 weeks. The pace was rigorous and the results were great. I gained a greater understanding of the apparel, home decor, and quilting markets. The feedback from the industry professionals guided me to make the necessary edits to make my collections the most marketable. I gained inspiration from my other classmates and enjoyed talking with the group during our workshop chat sessions.”
You can see more of Brittany’s work at www.rosevalleytextiles.com.
Curious about designing for the quilting industry, one of the three markets covered in Mastering Your Market? Sign up here to receive our FREE Quilt Market Guide!
