Cotton + Steel Coloring Book by Various

25/2/2016

Summary
Current Price: £10.99
Number of Pages: 160
Size: 23 x 21cm
Paper colour: White
Paper surface: Very Smooth
Paper thickness: Average
Linework: Varied
Perforated: Yes
One sided: Yes
Binding: Glue
Drawings go into the spine: Some
Waterbased pen bleed: Shadowing

Here's another one for you quilters and seamstresses! Cotton + Steel is a collaboration of designers who work together to create vintage, quirky fabric patterns: Melody Miller, Rashida Coleman-Hale, Alexia Abegg, Kim Kight, and Sarah Watts.

The designers

This book has converted C+S's fab patterns into monochrome line drawings, giving you the chance to reinvent them with your own colour scheme. The illustrations are sometimes eccentric, sometimes traditional, and focus mainly on repeated patterns with a twist- that twist being they're not all boring geometrical shapes; they're unconventional and authentic.

There are over 75 original designs, from Oriental-inspired motifs to wildlife art, with some truly one-of-a-kind aesthetics. I love alternative colouring books like this, I mean I love conventional nature scenes but a page full of cute chewing gum wrapper designs? It breaks up the monotony and injects a bit of fun into the day!

The book has a recycled feel to the card cover, with some piano black glossy detailing to the title to add a little opulence. The paper is of average thickness and will shadow through to the reverse when using waterbased pens, but the designs are one-sided so it shouldn't matter. The surface is very smooth and takes pencils well. Each page is perforated for easy removal, so you can add the patterns to scrap books or journals if you wish.

Here is my finished page, coloured with Tombow brush and Triplus pens. I chose it because it reminds me of Super Mario :)