Robot Overlord Fabric? Cool.

You are probably familiar by now with my husband’s Clarkesworld Magazine? The magazine’s mascot (for lack of a better word) is this sweet robot from Issue #8. Some time ago, Neil styled the robot into a t-shirt design, which you see above (and can buy here). I thought it would look cool as giant polka dots on a vintage aqua background, so I pulled his t-shirt design into Photoshop, and soon my fabric was born:

I also made some in white, for the purists 🙂

I ordered some of the aqua fabric through Spoonflower, and did what I always do when I have a cool cotton print in my hot little hands: I made a skirt! And, as soon as is humanly possible, I am going to put all of the steps together into an eBook and show you how to make this particular skirt, too! It’s an elastic-waist A-line, and it makes use of a custom pattern that you create yourself, so that it will fit your particular curves. Trust me, it’s easier than it sounds!

And in true Lisa Clarke form, I have a cover for this eBook long before I have the actual book part of the eBook.

[Edited July 10: The Easy A-Line Skirt is now available! Check it out.]

Now, Spoonflower fabric can be a tad spendy (Kona Cotton is $18/yard) and you can only get it in full-yard increments. For this skirt, I had to buy two yards, and it got me thinking: I needed a project that used a small amount of the special fabric for those people who had leftovers after making a skirt, or for those people who didn’t want a skirt at all, but who preferred to just buy the $5 fat quarter.

That’s when I came up with the book tote. (Another ebook that exists in cover form only, so far).

This tote is actually mostly mid-to-heavy-weight linen. It’s fully lined (with the linen) and uses less than a fat quarter of robot fabric. It’s nice and sturdy, for carrying around Clarkesworld Magazines, or for toting craft books to and from the library. This tote is roughly 10″x15″ (I say roughly because I don’t feel like getting off the couch to measure it exactly… you know how that goes) but when I write up the instructions, they will be flexible enough that you should feel confident in changing the dimensions to suit your needs.

[edited July 3: the Library Book Tote is now available! Check it out.]

Ok, so have I gotten you in the mood to get your own Robot Overlord fabric? You can get the aqua background print here, and the white background print here. (Full disclosure: as the designer of the fabric, I get a small commission.)

Oh! And both of those designs are available as more than just fabric – Spoonflower makes decals, wallpaper, and wrapping paper, too, so that’s kind of cool! Could you imagine wallpapering a room in robot heads? Wow! I think I’ll pass on that one, but I have to admit I am very tempted by the wrapping paper. Maybe for Neil’s birthday…

I’ll be back to let you know when the eBooks are available! If you think you’re going to want to make these things, order your fabric now, so you’ll be ready when I am. I am aiming to get at least one of these books published this week.