The suspense has been high between two layers of voting and over 2,000 participants - the Betabrand Palette-Sock Contest has finally come to a close. So without further adieu, the winners are...

Luna Rose "Urban Nature" | Northern Dancer "80 proof socks" | earlgrey "Good Morning"

These striped palette-socks will be sold in packs of three together in time for the Holidays over at Betabrand.com.

 

A big congratulations to these three ladies! They will each receive a $100 Betabrand gift card, their username on the sock packaging, five free sock three-packs and recognition on the Betabrand site in photos/videos (when able).

For the rest of you, Betabrand is offering great pre-order savings on the winning shirt and socks. And a special 20% discount on everything else at Betabrand.com. Click either of the links below...

COLOURlovers Striped Socks: $33 $25 Pre-Order Price

COLOURlovers Plaid Flanel: $80 $60 Pre-Order Price

A Look Back at the 30 Finalists & COLOURlovers Votes

Enjoy a looksie at the 30 most loved striped socks in phase one. Again, great job everyone, thanks for participating!

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header sock credits:

Hi, I’m Sarai, and I want to share a little style and sewing challenge that I’ll bet many of you will be interested in.

First, let me introduce myself. I am the designer and founder behind Colette Patterns, a boutique sewing pattern company. I also write the sewing blog The Coletterie and have a forthcoming sewing book, The Colette Sewing Handbook.

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One of the reasons I started a sewing pattern business is that I love the idea of investing our everyday lives with creativity, making conscious and creative decisions about how to dress rather than feeling overwhelmed by the push of fast fashion and cheap, disposable goods.

To that end, I came up with a fun way for sewists to get their creative juices flowing, by challenging my readers to create a seasonal mini-wardrobe based on an inspiring color palette. We now host palette challenges in the Spring and Fall, and it’s always fun to see what amazing projects people come up with.

The logistics are simple: You create a moodboard and color palette that is inspiring you for the season. Then you choose the number of projects to sew in an 8 week time period, based on your color palette. In the end, you (hopefully) have a coordinated mini-wardrobe.

You can use any patterns, any fabric. The idea is just to focus your sewing around the colors that inspire and excite you.

For my Fall palette this year, I chose sunset hues of mustard-gold, pumpkin, and red punctuated with black and ivory. Here’s what I’ve made so far:

WEEK 1: Lonsdale Dress

 

This late-summer dress is my transition piece, I suppose. The pattern is the Sewaholic Lonsdale dress, and the fabric is a beautiful Italian cotton.

WEEK 2: Clover Pant

 

Last week, I made these slim cigarette pants from my new Clover sewing pattern. The fabric is a mustard wool blend, underlined in cotton twill.

WEEK 3: Chevrons + Clover

And finally, my latest outfit is a second pair of clover pants in black velveteen, paired with a cotton/silk version of the (free) Sorbetto top pattern.

You can still join up!

If you’re interested in trying out your own palette challenge, you can read more details here on the Coletterie (blog).

Get a re-cap or see even more inspiration from our sewing challenges here in the SEWING CHALLENGES section (includes Spring 2011 + the current Fall Challenge underway).

Image credits for my moodboards: vintage mustard wool skirt from Dear Golden, 1930s crepe dress from thirteeneightyfive, image via junebugweddings, the character Joy from Mad Men, orange dress by Erin Fetherston via Style.com, red dress by Marc Jacobs Fall 2004 via Style.com, Orla Kiely cookbook, image via ginnyandjudes Etsy shop

 

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From the Forums

In the Forums we invite all those doing the challenge to post their inspiration boards, color palettes and anything to do with the challenge. It's amazing where some people draw their color inspiration from!

Outer Space Inspiration by "sweetjane"

"I decided to draw my color inspiration from outer space, since I'm a huge nerd & I associate fall with stargazing on brisk September/October/November evenings. (this particular photo is the Horsehead Nebula... I really like the muted almost-autumnal glow of all the colors. My palette could use a little work, but it's pretty close to what I'm going for.)" - sweetjane

Nature Board by "julie s"

Emralds by ginnie.wise

Creme + Orange by michaelannn

Muted Orange + Reds by Chance Of Rain

Pitter patter I hear a lot of palettes waiting to be worn on your feet! We recieved over 2,000 entries in the Betabrand Striped Sock Design Contest! Here we are in the final round - 30 finalists have been determined with the highest LOVES. I can't believe only three will win?! The winning sock designs will be sold as a 3-pack and ready for the Winter holidays.

Voting ends Tuesday, September 27th at 5:00 pm Pacific. Only THREE entrants will win and you only get to vote once! Additionally, FIVE lucky voters will win a prize from the Betabrand product line! So get your bunz over there and make it count!

Also, Betabrand is giving everyone a discount code:

"StripeSaver" is good for 20% off until the end of the September.

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Here we are again COLOURlovers! Get your Color Caps on and start putting together some amazing palettes for some way cool, striped socks by Betabrand! Just think about it, this Winter you, your fellow COLOURlovers and the rest of the world could be wearing one of your palettes on their feet!

We were stoked to work with our friends at Betabrand on the COLOURlovers Plaid Flannel Shirt and we're even more stoked to get the chance to work with them again on these awesome socks!

Browse the Contest Gallery | Create a New Entry Now!

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The Striped Socks Contest ~ 3 Winners!

The contest will be open one week, from September 14th - 22nd at 12:00 AM PDT. The 30 most LOVED entries will then move on to further voting at Betabrand.com.

Each COLOURlovers member is LIMITED TO THREE (3) ENTRIES... The entry submission page will let you know how many you have left. P.S. There's no way to change your entries so choose wisely! :)

Entering the Striped Sock Contest:

You can either browse through the most wonderful palettes you've already created and enter one of those... or get freshly inspired to create a new perfect palette to hug some toes.

Use a Palette You Already Created:

You can easily submit a current palette in your collection by going to your palette's information page.

Notice on the RIGHT column there is a nifty pair of socks just chill'n out with your palette on them. Just click the button, "Enter Betabrand Sock Contest."

You can even edit your palette before submitting. *I changed one of my grey's to white (above).*

OR Create a New Palette - Live Preview:

Go to the Striped Socks Entry Page, and when it loads all you need to do is click one of those gray squares under the socks to start making your masterpiece. Each time you select a color the sock template will refresh with your new color to give you a live preview of what your finished product will look like. You can even drag the color squares (right-left) to rearrange the colors to get your stripes just perfect.

When you're done deciding on a palette and layout of your stripes. Fill out the title and remaining information (optional) and hit the CREATE ENTRY button.

And there you are! Give yourself a high-five and LOVE your design. We've provided additional social tools (twitter, Facebook, Google and StumbleUpon) to help you share your creation with your friends and boost your loves… remember that since the 30 most loved designs will move on to the finalist round over at Betabrand you'll want all the love you can get!

Don't forget we're all about the LOVE, so feel free to cruise around and love some of the other designs in The COLOURlovers Striped Socks Gallery.

3 Contest Winners Receive:

Winners will receive a $100 Betabrand gift card, their username on the sock packaging, five free sock three-packs and recognition on the Betabrand site in photos/videos (when able).

But you don't have to wait until the winners are announced to start building your COLOURlovers wardrobe. Betabrand is letting people pre-order both the CL Plaid Shirt & CL Striped Socks at a very nice discount… Click either of the links below.

COLOURlovers Striped Socks: $33 $25 Pre-Order Price

COLOURlovers Plaid Flanel: $80 $60 Pre-Order Price
 

pais·ley: noun  A distinctive intricate pattern of curved, feather-shaped figures based on a pine-cone design from India. For COLOURlovers, the Paisley is a lovely lace-like motif that can be produced in any measure of design and color scheme. Like fingerprints, not one is the same.

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When I look at the Paisley, I see amoebas, tadpoles and teardrops combined with floral genius.

How often do you see a Paisley? I think it's something we see so often, might pass it by in our every day lives. The history of the Paisley I found quite interesting! Where it came from, what the word Paisley  actually means, or why they call it a Paisley at all...

Fashion is always one season ahead, but now that Fall is really on its way, the things you've worn all Summer are starting to give way to the pressure of changing winds - literally!

Thankfully, one of the most noticeable Fall trends is suitable for sunny days and colder weather, too. A spectrum of yellows, oranges and tomatoey reds have been parading across the globe, whether by runway or street-style. But perhaps even more fun than the warm colors themselves are the variations on how to wear these statement pieces. Traversing casual to formal, these warm hued clothes have had their versatility proven. So would you dare to put on any of these pairs or are regular blue jeans more your speed?

1. Sabrina Meijer of AfterDRK 2. J. Crew bistro pants 3. Silvia Navarro on Chicisimo 4. Zara Man Fall 2011 5. Yigal Azrouël Fall 2011

Broken down by style: Amsterdam's Sabrina Meijer and Yigal Azrouël's Fall runway both channel chic European simplicity, but the outfits definitely don't lack impact: neutrals and black create a high-contrast, color-blocking effect when combined with saturated orange and amber trousers.

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Meanwhile, not everyone is content keeping it simple. Silvia Navarro uses a complementary color palette, mixing preppy blue hues with heavily saturated orange for a layered outfit that's anything but conventional. Fashion brand Zara styles a similarly layered look, but with subdued earth tones and cool neutrals to create a subtle complementary color combination.

The business world of app development is huge. With so many tools at our fingertips, I am constantly discovering new apps. Be it for iPhone, iPad, iTouch, Android, Blackberry and so on, I'm sure you're all like me when find I would be lost without some of my favorites.

I'll be researching and picking (at random) an app I feel is worth mentioning each month. This month's selection is by Dear Future Astronaut AB and a bunch of fun so far. What initially caught my eye was their color-wheel style logo. I love the colors and layout of the finished infographic too! Very clean and fun to look at. Kudo's to the developers!

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PHOTO STATS APP - 1st Infographic Creator for iPhone.

If you use your phone to take a lot of your point-and-shoot photos, and you really like to take photos, this is definitely for you! I've recently been playing around with it and it's pretty fun! At a base, .99 - totally worth the fun.

photostatsapp.com

As the Summer (for most of us) comes to a close and we seep in to Fall, we take a look back at the Mercedes Miami Swim Fashion Week back in July. Noticeable neon Indian inspired Tribal Trends are seeping in to the 2012 RTW ("Ready To Wear") collections.

"From Fierce animal prints to safari suiting, spring is swinging to a tribal beat..." - Vogue.com

 

COLOURlovers themselves seem to be trending amongst pattern and palette designs. Take a look for yourself...

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Mara Hoffman

Mara Hoffman collaged complex patterns and playful color combinations, using cooler hues like ostrich feather green and sky blue as a base to feature rays of fluorescent warmer oranges, yellows, and pinks. Showing a flair for Egyptian patterns and colors, Hoffman cites her husband Javier Piñón’s last collection O Babalon as an influence for her tribal trend.

Dinelia Brazil & Luli Fama

Dinelia Brazil and Luli Fama chanelled their respective Brazilian and Cuban heritages, using similar heavily saturated palettes to create a modern spin on tribal lineated patterns.

Red Carter

Heavily saturated eye-popping brights are set to bleed into the next season, after being mastered this spring by fashion veterans from Haider Ackermann to Jill Sander, and Rachel Roy.  Red Carter used blocks of electric blue, lime green and flaming coral to create strong futuristic swimwear bound to turn heads.

Aqua Di Lara

On the other end of the color saturation spectrum, soft watercolors and bleeding patterns created a rainbow connection. Aqua Di Lara stayed true to its feminine style by evoking galaxy gazing, with midnight blues as a backdrop for whirls of soft pinks, mellow yellows and dewy greens.

Softer pastel prints were also channeled by White Sands Australia in Australian bushland inspired colors of soft olive, sweet peach and pale wattle yellow.  L*Space, Caffe Swimwear and A.Che also proved that pretty pops of posies on a light canvas are eternally classic.

Regardless of your penchant for neon or pastels, next Summer is set to sizzle with these colorful new trends.

All photos courtesy of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Swim

Betabrand, an online-only clothing company that produces limited-edition batches of clothing and accessories, recently paired up with COLOURlovers in the contest, Color-A-Plaid Shirt Contest by Betabrand + COLOURlovers. The contest turned out to be a huge success with over 5,000 entries!

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To enter the contest, COLOURlovers simply had to color a pre-picked plaid pattern - Betabrand2, which had been created by one of our very own Lovers, sec9586. After coloring the pattern it produced a plaid shirt mockup of the finished product.

VOTE HERE AT BETABRAND

The contest is closed and nine finalists were chosen by the Betabrand design team. Voting on these nine selections will be open until NOON (12pm PST) Monday, August 22, 2011.

The Finalists

Betabrand chose the finalists not by the amount of LOVES each pattern/palette got. Simply because this would have been unfair. COLOURlovers had added the ability to LOVE the designs and share them for the fun of the contest.

"Our design team narrowed it down to 9 finalists not based on the number of loves on Colourlovers - because patterns that were created at the beginning of the contest would have an unfair advantage to those created toward the end. As for not picking a winner, but rather narrowing it down to 9, we decided to do that because we were so thrilled with the volume and quality of submissions that we wanted to keep the love going!" - Jared @ Betabrand

The nine finalists in no particular order...

Hipster Plaid by bcrider

cloud nine by martino

*colour hunter* by Sunny21327

 

Introducing...PLYWERK, an eco-conscious photo mounting and art panel company based in Portland Oregon. They work with professional artists, photographers, interior designers, point and shoot photographers, parents, and everyone in between!

Art pieces are a made up of your print adhered to a Plywerk Panel to create a beautifully natural piece of wall art. Gorgeous bamboo or maple are offered for the wood options.

Plywerk Anatomy 101

Bamboo & Maple Plywerk Panels

COLOURlovers has recently become a Pro Partner of PLYWERK. Why is this super notable to mention? Because you're going to get the best, most amazing deals ever when you create an account (which is free). These deals are customized to COLOURlovers Members Only under the Prodeal membership (which is also free). Pretty sweet huh?