The textile artist we have the pleasure of introducing you to today is Jennifer Colin, and she is the woman behind My Little Print Fabrics. We liked her right away and a lot due to her use of colours and for one of her favourite subjects: birds. With clean lines and intense colours, without gradients. They are more than a piece of decor, they are like old friends who advise us: self-determination is dear, but essential to achieving an authentic existence.
For us, Jennifer has created a collection of birds with some of our fibers. The technique is that of needle felting. The colour palette ranges from yellow to pink to blue.
Enjoy the gallery. And learn more about Jennifer through her own words.
In the beginning, My Little Print Fabrics was a blog where Jennifer talked about her journey inside the world of sewing and the textile arts in general. She was quite young and a mother when she emigrated to the USA and one of her first urgencies was to find a new home. A home that she had to furnish, so as to feel less alone. The blog then allowed her to share her passion for travel and DIY.
For Jennifer, moving to the USA for her husband's job and leaving her own, was a great opportunity. Especially for the possibility to discover the world with 3 children under 4 years old. She always has a great hunger to travel and also has a degree in geography. She never expected to turn into an artist and entrepreneur, though. Initially, she hoped to create designs for furnishing fabrics.
Needle felting came later, and she answered her ambition to add texture, thanks to wool, to her block-printed botanical illustrations that were already embroidered onto fabric. Her designs were influenced by her surroundings and reflected her obsession with succulents and hummingbirds of which there are so many in California. Huge agave plants and deserts gave rise to a large collection of designs that combined felting and embroidery. Everything was then used for kits and laboratories too. This process mirrors her entrepreneurial life, largely based on this type of involuntary, random event.
In 2018 Jennifer returned to Savoy, France. Where she currently resides. She and her family have chosen the countryside, a place that overlooks the immense Alps and that Jennifer never tires of admiring from her studio. The connection between Nature and Art has never been as strong for her as it is today. Surely, however, her strong sensitivity comes from the two women who raised her. Her mother, a painter with a profound aesthetic sense, and her two grandmothers. Extremely talented in everything related to the handmade world. These women have shown her that in theory we are all self-taught artists. On the other hand, though, the love for birds comes from her father, a biologist and bird-watching enthusiast, who unfortunately passed away recently.
Finally, since she attended a training course at Lainamac (Wool National French Institute), Jennifer has discovered water felting and the creative potential of wool, especially as an element for home decor. She quickly discovered that she loved both water felting and needle felting. Given her fixation for mixing the various textile arts, she now hopes to create a collection of felt pieces dyed with natural colours, using the eco-printing technique. Obviously, her now iconic birds will be there and will look after the houses in which they live.
If you liked this article maybe you would also enjoy how to make a needle felted narwhal.
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