For Lucie Summers the most fabulous thing about her work at the moment is that she gets to design fabrics for renowned international label Moda. Well I’d be pinching myself every day with that kind of recognition too!
She came to launch her Summersville surface design business in a kind of a round about fashion. Although her time in art school included a special interest in printed textiles, she first started by opening up a patchwork shop with her mum. “In those days, quilt stores like ours were not usual in the UK, and we were quite ahead of our time. However, once I had my first son, I decided I just wanted to be a ‘mum’ for a while so we closed the shop.”
She started to play with screen printing again only after her second son was born, nearly 7 years ago. Then “I began uploading some photos of my work on to Flickr…and after encouraging comments from my Flickr contacts, decided to open an Etsy shop called lusummers. To begin with, I mainly sold paper collages, then started to combine the collages with screen printing, then got back into quilting. And even then, I didn’t want to use the fabrics everyone else was using so set about creating my own, and Summersville was born, and much to my surprise became quite a hit.”
Explaining her choice of medium, she said she had always been interested in fabric and crafts, and always loved making things. In fact, it was hard for her to not be constantly making something. “I used to make little bits and pieces for my dolls house and I was crazy about Fimo modelling clay. I’d spend hours making friendship bracelets too. My mum is a long-arm quilter and she custom quilts my work for me. My maternal Grandmother was a prolific sewer and knitter. One of my aunts has an amazing sense of style and design in her home while the other is the most amazing dress maker. So I’m surrounded by it all!”
Other inspirational folk for Lucie include textile designers Sarah Ahearn and Heather Moore (SkinnyLaMinx), as well as uber-quilters Nancy Crow and Yoshiko Jinzenji. I concur, those quilts are amazing!
When crafting her own designs, getting ideas onto paper is always the first step for Lucie. Then when she has enough ‘information’, she scans her sketches onto the computer, and sets about moving things around and creating repeats using Photoshop. But really, her very favourite part of this process is doing the first print onto cloth and seeing what it looks like in real life!
Her real life is real, though. Like so many creative people, the hardest single obstacle to her work is the juggle of family life. However, she counts herself lucky to have both a fabulously supportive husband and equally wonderful mother.
She loves the space and the light of her workspace – it is “light and bright with big windows; although more often than not, a chaotic mess. Big design wall, packed with current projects. I’m so lucky!” (And Lucie told me to mention that the picture of her studio is when she first moved in there, and “it doesn’t look like that now, it’s a pigsty!!!”) OK, so Lucie is very definitely real!
You can find Lucie’s hand-screenprinted fabrics, as well as the Moda produced ones in her Etsy shop here, and you can keep up with her on her blog http://blu-shed.blogspot.co.uk/
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With thanks to Lucie for generously sharing her words and images here.
Hi there! My name is Morgan MacCallum and I am a surface design student from New Brunswick, Canada. I was curious on how you got your start in the surface design industry, as I am quite keen on starting work when I’m finished school. I have a strong interest in pattern making for fabric and any type of surface, I’m just unsure on how to get myself out there to people in the industry. If you could spare a few minutes of your time to offer some advice I would be grateful. I like the simplicity of your patterns, I think you do great work!
Thanks,
Morgan.
Hi Morgan,
Lucie con be contacted via her Etsy shop – http://www.etsy.com/shop/summersville – just use the ‘contact’ button there to drop her a line. Another fabulous resource you might be interested in is Pattern Observer http://patternobserver.com/ – it’s all about surface design; inspirations & showcasing other designers, and they have just finished a series on how to put together a portfolio for presentation. Heaps of goodness! Hope that helps.
Julie 🙂