Delicatessen

We recently attended one of our favourite markets of the year, the Wellington Polish Christmas Market. As we started ramping up to prepare for our end-of-year markets, I got inspired to do some designs focused around the delights of European food. 
I had just finished my fungi of the Pacific Northwest design, and I had also just joined "Show me your charcuterie" on Facebook, so the stars aligned for me to create one of my favourite designs this quarter.

Charcuterie

Charcuterie (pronounced "CHAR-coo-t'ree" or "CHAR-coo-te-ree", click here to listen), is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork.
Source:
​Wikipedia

For this design, I worked from my own photos, experience, imagination, and a lot of research online.  ​I started with the sketch, which represents the pencil stage, then I overlay that sketch, changed to green, with plain black lines, which represent the ink stage.

​In the first image, below, I have created a diagonal grid texture (in green), which I then use in several of the different meats. 

Diagonal grid texture for salami

Creating more textures

That worked really well, so I created several more textured and used them to add variety to several of my other shapes.

Next, I used some basic colours to represent the different shades of brown, so that I can be sure to get a good dispersal across the different types of cured meats.

I use lime green to help me identify the areas that still need to be coloured. 

Right, all coloured - time to build a repeat! I made one that was just meat, and one that's more of a charcuterie platter - it includes designs from my cheese design, and some extra fruit, olives, a couple of gherkins. 

Charcuterie design - Click on this image to shop on Spoonflower

Charcuterie platter design - click on this image to shop on Redbubble

Bonus pic of the huz in the meat shirt at our latest market. You are welcome.

Boulangerie

What are the most important accompaniments to a good cured meat? BREADS, that's what. 
The word "boulangerie" means a bakery in French, so it's a good word to use for the accompanying design to charcuterie. Again, many of these are breads that I have seen, baked, and eaten myself. 

Same process here - "pencil" in green, then "pen" in black. 

Here's an example of a tile layout before and after turning it into a proper repeat.

Click on the image to shop on Spoonflower

Click on the image to shop on Redbubble

These two gorgeous scarves are still unsold at the time of posting - pop us a message through the page if you're keen to grab one! Every one is unique, handmade, and only $50NZD plus p&p.