Megan Price Designs

Typewriter patterns

Stop the press! Mr.PS towers is fast-filling up with typewriters. It started with proper old-skool ones, picked up from car boots, thrift stores and passed down from the family attic. Now there seems to be electric ones (no less) arriving via ebay....

So I thought it was time I put one or two of them to the test and see if they could earn their keep.

For this challenge I chose Gabriele.

I had a happy time tapping away.

I turned by non-literary efforts into repeat patterns.

Which I have then screenprinted on to fabric.

And then made into zippy pouches for pens and pencils and other essentials!

Addy is made using the plus sign, and like all the pouches, is printed in a choice of red, midnight blue, neon pink and sky blue.

I found that the percentage sign could be made in to a most-pleasing diagonal stripe. Check out the Percent purses.

I'm super-pleased with this Spot Stripe pattern, made using the colon key. 

And here is Number Crunch which I've made into pencil cases, for all you maths-geeks. This typewriter had rather nifty fraction keys, which helped create this great numerical stripe.

All the Zippy Pouches are in the shop now. And here's a shot of the £5 tool of the trade. Hurrah for local charity shops.

If you want to see what I did with my Olivetti Dora 3 years ago, here's the blog post.

New Cards

My bicycle wedding card has been flying out - must be the season - and folk have been asking for other bike-themed cards, so here's a couple of new ones....

First up is  King Of The Road  which as well as serving as a handy general purpose greeting card for men, would make a great non-icky Fathers Day card for a cycling-mad dad. (BTW Fathers Day in the UK is Sunday June 16)

And of course, here's one for the girls, Queen of The Road.

Partly inspired by the fact that I am deeply coveting one of these beauties from Bobbin Bicycles, and long to be pedalling around town with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair..... (WHEN WILL SUMMER COME, WHEN?!)

Ahem.

And finally, I've printed up some moving house cards. 

Happy New Home

All the cards come in a selection of colours with lovely coloured envelopes, and of course are all screenprinted in the Mr.PS studio. You can see the whole collection here.

Independent on Sunday

It's a lovely sunny weekend, so perfect timing for this Sunny Side Up interiors feature. 

The Sunday 4 May issue of The New Review, the magazine supplement of The Independent on Sunday, which features our Happy Face cushion.

Happy Faces Cushion in sunshine yellow

 

The New Review has had a bit of a redesign, so it's great to have one of our products included in the new look magazine. You can read the article online here.

Victoria Baths open day

This Sunday, 5th May there will be an open day and zine/print fair at Victoria Baths in Manchester.

Victoria Baths first came to my knowledge through its success on the BBC's Restoration programme, hosted by Griff Rhys Jones, which aired in 2003, ten years after the Baths were closed. The Friends and Victoria Baths Trust have spent the rest of this time campaining, fundraising and working on the restoration of this iconic heritage venue. 

They hold a few open days during the summer months, where the public are invited to tour the building, as well as other events, such as vintage, craft and fanzine fairs.

We'll be setting out a Mr.PS stall there this Sunday, with prints, tea towels, mugs and cards.

It'll probably look a little something like this

As well as local stall-holders from Manchester, Salford and Trafford; artists, designers, printers and publishers are coming in from Preston, Bradford, Carlisle, Leeds, Brighton and Birmingham to sell their wares. So there should be something for everyone!

The open day runs from 12 noon - 4pm and the programme for the afternoon is as follows:

All afternoon (12-4pm)

• Stalls
• Hands-on Fanzine making with Pool Arts including simple lino-cut printing and collage
• Five minute portraits by David Carden
• Display of gig flyers featured in Helpyourself Manchester

1pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester

1.30pm - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool

2pm - Musical Tour of Victoria Baths by David Carden

2.30pm - Talk by John Mather on the Pools of Greater Manchester

            - Behind the Scenes - special guided tour of the baths

3pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester

         - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers in the Gala Pool

3.30pm - Reading of short fiction by David Hartley, member of the new writing collective Flashtag

There will also be guided tours " Getting to Know Victoria Baths" at 1pm, 2pm & 3pm

What a great way to spend a Bank Holiday Sunday. More info here. See you there? 

 

Happy Tabby Cat screenprints

We had a great day at the Manchester Print Fair (see last post) on Saturday, big thanks to Alessandra the organiser and to everyone who came and made it such a success. It was so busy I hardly got to talk to any of the other stall-holders, apart from my neighbours The Manchester Modernists, and Textbook Studio.

For the event, I screenprinted lots of Happy Tabby Cats on paper.

Using the screen of Robert's drawing that I made for the Happy Cat tea towels, I created a series of mono-screenprints on paper. Each print is completely different, as you use different colours and amounts of ink on the screen, applying with a paintbrush before pulling through with a squeegee. It's the perfect way to create stripes and markings to evoke those of a tortoiseshell or tabby cat.

Here's a picture of a few of them hanging up at the fair.

Lots of them went off to new homes, sometimes people new exactly which they wanted, sometimes there was a bit of umm-ing and err-ing, as although they all have the same facial expression, they all seem to have different personalities!

Anyway, I have a few left, so I've put them in the online shop. So if you missed out on coming down, or couldn't decide on the day, there's still the option to adopt a Happy Tabby!

Miouw!

Manchester Print Fair

Saturday 13th April 12noon - 5pm 2022NQ, off Dale Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester.

I'll be there with lots of Mr.PS goodies as well as Robert Shadbolt prints and Happy Cat screenprints.

Find out more about the event here

Poster design by Alessandra Mostyn