For example, it was around this time that Heath Ceramics, the globally renowned San Francisco-based creator of handmade ceramic tiles and tableware, placed their first “order” with Heather, which at first was a “let’s swap ceramics for tea towels” arrangement. (The relationship between the two brands is ongoing, with Heath Ceramics now stocking a range of Skinny laMinx tea towels and other goods in their stores, and Moore having produced a range of fabric designs inspired by their tiles.) The positive feedback from both local and international customers convinced Moore that she really did have a viable business on her hands, and by 2009 she was able to give up her writing job and devote herself to Skinny laMinx full-time. Still working out of a small shared studio, she also began to move beyond tea towels into designing fabrics for yardage—a rather different enterprise as it involves working out pattern repetitions across a larger area. “I’m always making things,” Moore says. “There’s always something buzzing around in the background [of my mind]. Whether it’s color collages or linocuts… just things really.” She explains this during a conversation in her charming apartment (in which her own The wicker chair is a flea-market find, as is the electric fan. The fabric swatches displayed against the wall were created by Moore during a batik workshop on a recent trip to Eswatini (Swaziland), during which she led a printmaking workshop for Ace Camps (acecampstravel.com). The birdlike ceramic piece and embroidered work in the wooden hoop are two of Moore’s creations, too, while the basket is from Design Afrika (designafrika.co.za).
This series of creative experiments were all made using paper cutouts of various kinds. Moore says she spent quite a lot of time last year [2017] exploring sunburst patterns inspired by American architect and designer Alexander Girard (1907-1993)—the one seen here at the top left is an example.
This spread/ page from one of Moore’s workbooks demonstrates how she works from an image that inspires her to the cutout pieces, patterns that might become a printed pattern on fabric someday.
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