The Very First Blog Entry

Wow! This “very first blog entry” has turned out to be quite the daunting task… finding the perfect first sentence is oddly intimidating, so I’m going to have to jump right in and introduce myself. My name is Lauren Jung and my mom, Jessi, and I have recently designed our first fabric line for Moda Fabrics. 

To give a little context to this whole venture…  I recently finished up a graduate program in graphic design at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta. I looked for a job, but being October, no firms were hiring which lead to a very depressing Christmas. 

It was this same feeling of failure…  mixed with a little bit of boredom that lead to the actual idea of designing a line of fabric. After sitting around for a few days at my grandparent’s house in Topton, PA, I told my mom that I thought we should design a fabric line… because, afterall, how hard could it be.

Three months later, after many frustrating late nights, we finished our line and decided to call it Botany. I assembled a fanciful promotional box set containing a deck of 65 swatch cards (each displaying a different pattern in its full 10×10 glory, as well as a book of 9 quilts and 5 alternate applications… in order to show the line’s diversity and potential. After dotting all my i’s and crossing all my t’s, I dropped this extremely tedious presentation into the mail and sent it to Moda Fabrics.

If it wasn’t for the thoroughness of FEDex, however, this extremely tedious presentation would have been submitted anonymously, as I forgot to include any form of identification within the packet…  no name, no phone number, no return address. 

I never cease to amaze myself!

That week turned out to be a very lucky week for me! Within days of hearing that Moda was going to produce our line, I found out from G2 Interactive, the web design company that I had applied to five months prior, that they were going to hire me on as a web designer!

It’s been a real feat balancing my day job with my fabric designing, and I’ve become very thankful for my amazing time management skills. In two months I’ve thrown together this blog, designed and created our website, and within a week, banged out 133 promotional packets to hand out at this year’s Fall Market… which was no small task. Also in this two month span, my mom has designed and written the instructions for 6 complimentary patterns (available for download on our website), as well as outlined and sketched out the idea for our next line. We’ve gotten together twice now since I’ve moved, but the majority of our collaboration takes place over the phone…  with me in Philadelphia and her in Spartanburg, SC.

And… I think that about covers everything in terms of an intro… we’re so excited to be a part of this whole scene, and look forward to hearing from anyone and everyone who is interested in us, our line, or fabric design in general!

Cheers!

25 Comments

  • I love your fabric! and have a passion for morning glories.I can’t wait to order your fabric.
    good luck at the market!

    Raquel

  • Sinta Renee says:

    Can’t wait to see what you will be showing! Your fabric line looks beautiful!

  • Love your fabric range! Just thought I would pop over toyour blog to tell you 🙂

  • Emily says:

    Oh my! Your website is simply WONDERFUL! I am so excited for Botany and for your future lines! Already printed off the available pattern. Great work gals!

    • admin says:

      Oh, thank you so much… we’re very excited! I wanted to tell you though, on the free pattern, my mom checked over it a few days ago and noticed a few typos on the instructions… she’s going to go over it with a fine toothed comb and then I’ll reload it. She wrote all of the patterns first… a few months ago… then I’ve been formating them. I wanted the illustrations and the layout to be very easy to understand… because I’ve heard from a lot of people that there are a number of patterns out there that leave steps out or contain instructions that are too vague… but not being a quilter myself, I should have probably not rewritten her instructions myself without checking first! I’ll be sure to put up a post when the finals are all up on the site. It should be within the next two weeks! Take care and thanks for your nice comments!

  • The craziness of before the show.We all experience that Don’t we?But at the end everything comes on place just like a puzzle and is so worth it.and make you think:LET DO IT AGAIN!

  • The craziness of before the show.We all experience that Don’t we?But at the end everything comes on place just like a puzzle and is so worth it.and make you think:LETS DO IT AGAIN!

    • admin says:

      I know!! Getting ready for market made me feel like I was back in school during exam week… then when it finally got here, it flew by, but in a good way. It was very nice to be able to finally put faces with names that I’ve been hearing for so long!

  • Rosemary says:

    Congratulations!! Chip just came by and ‘showed off’ your new website and beautiful fabric line!
    Can’t wait to see it all!!! I’ll keep watching the new Moda Lines!!

  • admin says:

    Hey, thanks Rosemary! My dad’s been so funny during this whole process. In the beginning I don’t think he believed us when we told him that Moda was a real fabric company and that they were going to print our fabric. Once we received it in the mail though, it’s been an entirely different ball game. He’s been telling people about it… promoting our site… contacting people about legal stuff… and every now and then, he’ll even call me up about what our next big idea should be! 🙂

  • Truden says:

    Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
    Truden

  • Cheryl says:

    We just saw your fabric today. We placed our order and we are so excited. You have done a great job, good luck with your new adventures with MODA. I can’t wait to get this line here in our shop.
    It is Beautiful…

    • admin says:

      Cheryl, thank you so much for such a nice post… that’s the sort of post that makes everything feel worth it! I added a link to both your blog and store in the Links section of our blog… and as soon as I have the Store Section of our website updated (which should be in the next week or two)… I’ll add you there too! Thank you again for your support!

  • Teresa says:

    Love your new line, as well as your beautiful website! The sunflower field photo is stunning, as are all the other photos. Posted your link on my Facebook page. Good luck in becoming a Moda designer. Teresa

  • Brenda says:

    I just love your website – what a great job. It is very colorful and easy to work with.

    Great job on the Website – it is so colorful and very easy to navigate through it.

    I tried to copy your Metric Equivalency Chart to keep with my sewing projects but it wouldn’t allow me to do so, so I’m thinking you may have it set up that way perhaps?

    I did notice on the chart that it begins with 1/8 equals 4 1/2 inches and goes to 2 yards equals 72 inches. But on your chart the last yardage says 1 yard equals 72 inches (which should be 2 yards equals 72 inches.) Let me know if I’m not explaining it correctly.

    Thank you and good luck and best wishes in the new year.
    Brenda Kowalski

  • admin says:

    Thank you so much for the nice comments! And thank you for letting me know about the mistake you spotted, I’ll definitely change that as soon as I get some time. As for pulling copies of the charts, I set that section up as a Flash module. One way to copy them is to take a screen grab (by hitting PrtSc and then pasting it into a Word file if you are on a PC… if you are on a MAC, type in Apple, Shift, 4 and it will save the screen grab to your desktop). But that comment also brought up a goodpoint… when I make the correction to the chart, I’ll add a download button, so that people can download a PDF of the chart. That would really make a lot more sense, no one would want to have to reference their computer screen everytime they need a quick measurement. 🙂 Thank you and Happy Holidays!

  • Brenda says:

    I chuckled when I read your comments and you said “as soon as I get some time”. Please let me know where you can find that because I could use some as well.
    Thanks for your quick response and also for the info on how to copy it to a word file.
    Brenda

  • Loraerops says:

    What WP template do you use?

  • There is simply no better start up story than, “Ack.. this is hard–OMG! CRAP! GO GO GO!!!”

    Congratulations and I wish you the best of luck! Go go go!

  • Meg Matthews says:

    This is fabulous !!!! Too bad that I’m not creative . Maybe I’ll have to give it a try just to become involved with these beautiful fabrics !!!! You girls are beyond belief !

  • Rene' says:

    Looking forward to seeing your fabrics in our shops. I have my eye on a few of them )

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