I was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and am the youngest of four siblings. Since I was a little kid, I have loved drawing. I could spend hours at my little desk with my Crayolas. To this day, the smell of crayons transports me back in time to my childhood memories.
One of the biggest influences in my life has been my mother. She’s an artist and a very creative person. If she wasn’t painting, she was doing stained glass or sewing costumes for us. She always encouraged and supported me to cultivate my creativity and develop my love for design.
When I graduated from high school, I took a year off to study abroad in Florence, Italy, to learn Italian and art history. That year was a turning point in my life, as I met a new world and reaffirmed that design and art were what I wanted to pursue. I went back home to study graphic design.
In the middle of my career, I studied abroad for a year at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London, where I studied advertising and graphic design. Upon my return to Guadalajara, I got my degree. I moved to Mexico City and started my work life in the world of advertising and packaging design agencies. It was a learning stage full of achievements and challenges.
In 2011, I married my high school sweetheart after being together for 14 years. And five years later, I became a mom. It was my dream come true. Becoming a mom was life changing, as it certainly is for everyone.
I saw myself becoming a mom as they told me in fairy tales. Nonetheless, I had a very complicated pregnancy with a serious condition called HELLP syndrome, so it was a bittersweet experience. This has been one of my toughest challenges: to let expectations go, heal my body, and stop idealizing how it could have been different. But there was a new little person who had arrived to fill my heart and who depended on me. She was my true love and my biggest blessing.
While my daughter was growing up, I was having baby blues. It was very important for me to find myself again and pursue a career. I wanted to be a mom, but I also wanted to keep creating, designing and living a life creatively.
One day, I decided to learn sewing. I wanted to have a feeling of achievement and learn a new skill. Since then, my life changed: A new world of possibility opened for me. This is something I’m very grateful to my baby for because I became a mom and also found my passion for quilting.
That’s when my quilting journey began, and I created my brand, called Pretty Please. I began designing and sewing quilted bags. My line consisted mainly of bags and pouches for organizing baby items such as clothes, diapers and bottles. My bags were very successful because apart from being useful and pretty, they were handmade, and people loved that. They were quilted with love and were unique to the mom who received them. They loved the fact that they were quilted accessories, something not very common here in Mexico. Moreover, I was also expecting my second baby.
In 2020, when my second baby was six months old, I flew to Austin to QuiltCon. This trip was magical. I went home full of inspiration and with new ideas for my business. But as soon as I came back, within days COVID hit.
The pandemic has so many blessings. I learned so much about myself, how resilient I am, and how important it is to take care of our health. The pandemic brought me light and allowed me to find my passion for fabric design.
When I discovered surface pattern design, I realized that I could design fabric. I wanted to differentiate myself, so I decided to design my own fabric collections.
With my kids home 24/7, I dedicated myself to sewing and drawing every night. I took an online course on creating fabric collections at Central Saint Martins. I learned how to work on collections and try different painting techniques. It got my creative juices flowing and allowed me to experiment with different mediums. I tried to learn everything so I could design my own collections for my bags.
The world became my oyster, and with that came long nights of not sleeping, home schooling by day and working by night. I had so many plans and ideas to make and not enough hours. That’s when the universe had different plans for me.
One day, I woke up with a lot of pain in my leg, and by the end of the day, I just couldn’t walk. But being the worst month of the pandemic, when there was not a lot of information on how COVID was transmitted, it felt really scary to go to the hospital. A few days later, I finally decided to go. But what started as a leg pain turned out to be a major thrombosis. Long story short, I spent seven days in the hospital, went through three surgeries, and finally made it out of there! Not fully recovered but enough to be thankful to live and be home and surrounded in the distance (because of COVID) by so many friends and family.
My kids stayed with my in-laws for a month so I could recover. I think of this chapter of my life as a blessing, a change of heart and a wake-up call. I felt like a bus had hit me, but I had also never felt more alive and happier, looking to experience all the things this world has to give. This was an experience with so many lessons. So, I embraced it. I was thankful for it. I wanted to create even more: to draw, to sew, to create so many beautiful things.
This is how my journey in fabric design started, a second chance to live that fueled me with energy. It helped me overcome my fears to pursue what I love doing and show up for myself. This reminds me every day to live to the fullest and keep creating!
My husband is my No. 1 supporter. He always asks me why I love what I do so much. I love designing fabrics to create positive emotions and bring joy with my patterns. Designing gives me a sense of fulfillment. I love creating and sharing beautiful artwork. I want to empower and motivate my kids and other moms and women to find space for themselves as artists and to seek time for their creativity and fill their lives with color. There’s no fuller life than a life lived creatively.
In my journey, I found so many wonderful teachers that inspired me to design my own collections. I took an incredible course with Elizabeth Silver. She’s super savvy and business-driven, and gave me the tools to overcome the imposter syndrome and start believing in myself. Then I met Bonnie Christine, who showed me all the skills of creating a collection and helped me trust that there’s room for me in the industry. And Stacie Bloomfield, who is the most authentic and generous mentor that I know. She showed me all the ways to leverage my art. And I can name many other quilters and designers that inspire me every day.
“Slow growth is good growth.”
— Stacie Bloomfield
My Creative Process
When designing a collection, my creative process focuses on a theme that I brainstorm. I pull together different concepts, ideas, words and sentiments around it. I focus first on my hero prints and then work around the secondary and blender prints.
I gather as much inspiration as I can. I like to sketch loose ideas of how I want my patterns to look. Then, I hand-draw the motifs on my sketchbook. I love to sketch different perspectives and tons of motifs.
From there, I take pictures of my sketches to have as reference. I retrace them on Procreate and add color. That’s when the fun begins. After digitalizing my motifs, I work in Illustrator and Photoshop to create my duplicates.
I work in different sessions. I gather ideas and brainstorm in one session and from there dedicate a week to sketching, then designing and doing the patterns.
I like to print samples of my patterns. It’s amazing to see your patterns portrayed in fabric. This helps me visualize the collection as a whole, so I can start designing my quilts and bags. From there, I adjust colors, sizes and add even more patterns to the collection if I need them. I rough sketch my bag or quilt in Illustrator to picture how my fabrics will look on the product.
I don’t necessarily follow trends. I love choosing by instinct and, more organically, thinking on the theme I want to communicate. I use different scales and variations. I have saturated and maximalist prints, while others are more toned down to balance the collection. I like incorporating some textures and small elements. I love using a similar color palette throughout my collections. My designs are bold and colorful with pops of pinks and oranges. I have a very saturated color palette that blends together very well.
My collections are meant to spark joy and beauty with their rich and sophisticated colors and detailed illustrations. I love everything pink. My work is inspired by my culture: Mexico is a very colorful country, rich in traditions and diversity. Nature is my biggest source of inspiration, and I have a deep love for florals. And my style is sweet, whimsical and feminine.
Another source of inspiration comes from traveling. I can find inspiration from the rugs at the hotel to simple things that can spark an idea. I love visiting the history and art museums and the botanic gardens. And, of course, the local quilt shops are a must!
“Everything is okay, everything will be okay.”
— Mauricio Vasconcelos Allende
I love all quilting techniques, although I do pieced quilting most of the time. I am starting to incorporate English paper piecing into my work.
My favorite part of making a quilt is choosing the fabric. It’s the fun part where you choose as little or as many colors and patterns as you like. That’s what I love about creating my fabric: I start with a collection, and at the end, if I need blenders, I can always incorporate more designs. I love mixing and matching between one and another.
I still have a long way to go to learn all the quilting rules, but I just know that I enjoy the process of piecing the fabric, doing the patchwork and playing with it.
I want my fabrics to be special to quilters who sew with them. For me, quilting has become a very meditative process, and I would like them to experience the same.
Designing fabric and quilting gives me time for quiet reflection and keeps my creativity flowing. It makes me feel connected and energized. It allows me to become a better version of myself. It gives me purpose and fulfillment. I just love what I do.
“Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.”
— Julia Cameron
What’s Next?
I’m excited to announce that I just signed a licensing contract to design my fabric collections with Andover Fabrics, an American fabric company based in New York City. I love their fabrics and am thrilled to start working with them; it’s such a dream to be one of their designers.
I am a member of the Mexico Modern Quilt Guild, and together, we’re trying to grow the community of quilters in Mexico.
I want to promote the modern quilting movement in my country and to inspire and invite younger generations to start sewing and fall in love with the craft.
When I looked for Mexican fabric designers, I realized that there are just a couple of designers working in the industry. There are many quilters but not people designing quilting fabric in Mexico. So, this idea motivated me. I want to keep designing quilting fabric and show people in Mexico what modern quilting is all about.
I truly believe there’s NO limit on what we can dream of.
I was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and am the youngest of four siblings. Since I was a little kid, I have loved drawing. I could spend hours at my little desk with my Crayolas. To this day, the smell of crayons transports me back in time to my childhood memories.
One of the biggest influences in my life has been my mother. She’s an artist and a very creative person. If she wasn’t painting, she was doing stained glass or sewing costumes for us. She always encouraged and supported me to cultivate my creativity and develop my love for design.
When I graduated from high school, I took a year off to study abroad in Florence, Italy, to learn Italian and art history. That year was a turning point in my life, as I met a new world and reaffirmed that design and art were what I wanted to pursue. I went back home to study graphic design.
In the middle of my career, I studied abroad for a year at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London, where I studied advertising and graphic design. Upon my return to Guadalajara, I got my degree. I moved to Mexico City and started my work life in the world of advertising and packaging design agencies. It was a learning stage full of achievements and challenges.
In 2011, I married my high school sweetheart after being together for 14 years. And five years later, I became a mom. It was my dream come true. Becoming a mom was life changing, as it certainly is for everyone.
I saw myself becoming a mom as they told me in fairy tales. Nonetheless, I had a very complicated pregnancy with a serious condition called HELLP syndrome, so it was a bittersweet experience. This has been one of my toughest challenges: to let expectations go, heal my body, and stop idealizing how it could have been different. But there was a new little person who had arrived to fill my heart and who depended on me. She was my true love and my biggest blessing.
While my daughter was growing up, I was having baby blues. It was very important for me to find myself again and pursue a career. I wanted to be a mom, but I also wanted to keep creating, designing and living a life creatively.
One day, I decided to learn sewing. I wanted to have a feeling of achievement and learn a new skill. Since then, my life changed: A new world of possibility opened for me. This is something I’m very grateful to my baby for because I became a mom and also found my passion for quilting.
That’s when my quilting journey began, and I created my brand, called Pretty Please. I began designing and sewing quilted bags. My line consisted mainly of bags and pouches for organizing baby items such as clothes, diapers and bottles. My bags were very successful because apart from being useful and pretty, they were handmade, and people loved that. They were quilted with love and were unique to the mom who received them. They loved the fact that they were quilted accessories, something not very common here in Mexico. Moreover, I was also expecting my second baby.
In 2020, when my second baby was six months old, I flew to Austin to QuiltCon. This trip was magical. I went home full of inspiration and with new ideas for my business. But as soon as I came back, within days COVID hit.
The pandemic has so many blessings. I learned so much about myself, how resilient I am, and how important it is to take care of our health. The pandemic brought me light and allowed me to find my passion for fabric design.
When I discovered surface pattern design, I realized that I could design fabric. I wanted to differentiate myself, so I decided to design my own fabric collections.
With my kids home 24/7, I dedicated myself to sewing and drawing every night. I took an online course on creating fabric collections at Central Saint Martins. I learned how to work on collections and try different painting techniques. It got my creative juices flowing and allowed me to experiment with different mediums. I tried to learn everything so I could design my own collections for my bags.
The world became my oyster, and with that came long nights of not sleeping, home schooling by day and working by night. I had so many plans and ideas to make and not enough hours. That’s when the universe had different plans for me.
One day, I woke up with a lot of pain in my leg, and by the end of the day, I just couldn’t walk. But being the worst month of the pandemic, when there was not a lot of information on how COVID was transmitted, it felt really scary to go to the hospital. A few days later, I finally decided to go. But what started as a leg pain turned out to be a major thrombosis. Long story short, I spent seven days in the hospital, went through three surgeries, and finally made it out of there! Not fully recovered but enough to be thankful to live and be home and surrounded in the distance (because of COVID) by so many friends and family.
My kids stayed with my in-laws for a month so I could recover. I think of this chapter of my life as a blessing, a change of heart and a wake-up call. I felt like a bus had hit me, but I had also never felt more alive and happier, looking to experience all the things this world has to give. This was an experience with so many lessons. So, I embraced it. I was thankful for it. I wanted to create even more: to draw, to sew, to create so many beautiful things.
This is how my journey in fabric design started, a second chance to live that fueled me with energy. It helped me overcome my fears to pursue what I love doing and show up for myself. This reminds me every day to live to the fullest and keep creating!
My husband is my No. 1 supporter. He always asks me why I love what I do so much. I love designing fabrics to create positive emotions and bring joy with my patterns. Designing gives me a sense of fulfillment. I love creating and sharing beautiful artwork. I want to empower and motivate my kids and other moms and women to find space for themselves as artists and to seek time for their creativity and fill their lives with color. There’s no fuller life than a life lived creatively.
In my journey, I found so many wonderful teachers that inspired me to design my own collections. I took an incredible course with Elizabeth Silver. She’s super savvy and business-driven, and gave me the tools to overcome the imposter syndrome and start believing in myself. Then I met Bonnie Christine, who showed me all the skills of creating a collection and helped me trust that there’s room for me in the industry. And Stacie Bloomfield, who is the most authentic and generous mentor that I know. She showed me all the ways to leverage my art. And I can name many other quilters and designers that inspire me every day.
“Slow growth is good growth.”
— Stacie Bloomfield
My Creative Process
When designing a collection, my creative process focuses on a theme that I brainstorm. I pull together different concepts, ideas, words and sentiments around it. I focus first on my hero prints and then work around the secondary and blender prints.
I gather as much inspiration as I can. I like to sketch loose ideas of how I want my patterns to look. Then, I hand-draw the motifs on my sketchbook. I love to sketch different perspectives and tons of motifs.
From there, I take pictures of my sketches to have as reference. I retrace them on Procreate and add color. That’s when the fun begins. After digitalizing my motifs, I work in Illustrator and Photoshop to create my duplicates.
I work in different sessions. I gather ideas and brainstorm in one session and from there dedicate a week to sketching, then designing and doing the patterns.
I like to print samples of my patterns. It’s amazing to see your patterns portrayed in fabric. This helps me visualize the collection as a whole, so I can start designing my quilts and bags. From there, I adjust colors, sizes and add even more patterns to the collection if I need them. I rough sketch my bag or quilt in Illustrator to picture how my fabrics will look on the product.
I don’t necessarily follow trends. I love choosing by instinct and, more organically, thinking on the theme I want to communicate. I use different scales and variations. I have saturated and maximalist prints, while others are more toned down to balance the collection. I like incorporating some textures and small elements. I love using a similar color palette throughout my collections. My designs are bold and colorful with pops of pinks and oranges. I have a very saturated color palette that blends together very well.
My collections are meant to spark joy and beauty with their rich and sophisticated colors and detailed illustrations. I love everything pink. My work is inspired by my culture: Mexico is a very colorful country, rich in traditions and diversity. Nature is my biggest source of inspiration, and I have a deep love for florals. And my style is sweet, whimsical and feminine.
Another source of inspiration comes from traveling. I can find inspiration from the rugs at the hotel to simple things that can spark an idea. I love visiting the history and art museums and the botanic gardens. And, of course, the local quilt shops are a must!
“Everything is okay, everything will be okay.”
— Mauricio Vasconcelos Allende
I love all quilting techniques, although I do pieced quilting most of the time. I am starting to incorporate English paper piecing into my work.
My favorite part of making a quilt is choosing the fabric. It’s the fun part where you choose as little or as many colors and patterns as you like. That’s what I love about creating my fabric: I start with a collection, and at the end, if I need blenders, I can always incorporate more designs. I love mixing and matching between one and another.
I still have a long way to go to learn all the quilting rules, but I just know that I enjoy the process of piecing the fabric, doing the patchwork and playing with it.
I want my fabrics to be special to quilters who sew with them. For me, quilting has become a very meditative process, and I would like them to experience the same.
Designing fabric and quilting gives me time for quiet reflection and keeps my creativity flowing. It makes me feel connected and energized. It allows me to become a better version of myself. It gives me purpose and fulfillment. I just love what I do.
“Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.”
— Julia Cameron
What’s Next?
I’m excited to announce that I just signed a licensing contract to design my fabric collections with Andover Fabrics, an American fabric company based in New York City. I love their fabrics and am thrilled to start working with them; it’s such a dream to be one of their designers.
I am a member of the Mexico Modern Quilt Guild, and together, we’re trying to grow the community of quilters in Mexico.
I want to promote the modern quilting movement in my country and to inspire and invite younger generations to start sewing and fall in love with the craft.
When I looked for Mexican fabric designers, I realized that there are just a couple of designers working in the industry. There are many quilters but not people designing quilting fabric in Mexico. So, this idea motivated me. I want to keep designing quilting fabric and show people in Mexico what modern quilting is all about.
I truly believe there’s NO limit on what we can dream of.
