OOh! My Spoonflower Fabric!

by Sister-Diane on June 24, 2008

Here’s where I join an extremely lucky group of people: I got my beta-test order of custom-printed fabric back from Spoonflower today!

In case you’ve missed all the buzz, Spoonflower is a new online company that will print your designs onto fabric – by the swatch, by the fat quarter, or by the yard. The website is allowing groups of beta-testers to upload designs and place orders right now.

Right off the bat, let me answer your question: “What the heck is that weird rectangle that runs across your pattern?” That’s my fault entirely – I was trying to do something tricky with Pages and my screen-grab utility in order to make my fabric design, and it turned out not to be such a great idea.

I was hugely impressed, though, with the quality of the image printing and the quality of the fabric. Not to mention, the beautiful packaging – which I didn’t think to photograph until after I had ripped through it like a six-year-old.

If you want to see some really wonderful inspiration, be sure to check out the weekly Spoonflowering videos, where founders Stephen and Kim Fraser share peeks at the designs they’ve been printing for people each week.

If you’re curious about designing for fabric, be sure to read Julia Rothman’s awesome tutorial on creating repeats. And also, Directionality in Fabric, on True Up.

. . . Now, what to do with my fabric? Given my rectangle-biff, I think I’ll plan to cut it into wide stripes and incorporate it into a patchwork tote with some denim I have leftover. Maybe embroider some flowers on the denim to echo those on the Spoonflower fabric.

The flowers, btw, I made with ZeFrank’s Flower Maker.

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Sister-Diane

ejzmom, I cheated a little on the dpi, but it didn't affect the quality of the finished fabric too much. I don't have access to Photoshop these days, so I used iPhoto on my Mac instead. When you export an image from iPhoto, you can set the quality level: Low, Medium, High, or Maximum. I went Maximum, which gave it a higher dpi, but the software doesn't indicate what it actually is.

One thing that did make a difference: I made my flowers very large in the Flower Maker, screen-captured them large, and then reduced their size in the composed image I created.

ejzmom

It's so pretty. a question... after you screen-capture the flowers do you have to increase the resolution or dpi to send it for printing? as i read from Spoonflower blog that the patterns have to be uploaded at 150dpi. thanks.

dmollison

OH! That is beautiful. I just placed my first order last night. I'm so excited. Well done with those flowers.

Shannon of Mayabella

That is gorgeous! And the reds came out so nice. I am still trying to work out my fuzzy images! Frustrating. But I love Spoonflower!

Bridget B.

Eeee! I got my spoonflower invite a week ago, and just haven't figured out yet what I want to try and have printed . . . I get giddy as a schoolgirl, though, each time I see some new blogger post about getting their fabric . . . this concept is brilliant!!

Steffen

this is seriously very cool and what a great piece of fabric to do something really nifty with- good luck and well done

Sister-Diane

Jeanetta, to get those flowers, I used something called Grab, which is a built-in screen-capture utility on my Mac. With it, I can select any section of the computer screen, and Grab saves it as a GIF file. Then I converted the GIFs to JPEGs, and used them to build the design.

If you use Windows, you might try this technique for getting a screen capture: http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/general/ht/win...

jeanetta

i have a quick question about the flower site. how were you able to capture or save the flower image once you created it. did you just print them out and rescan them because i cant figure out another way of using my flower designs. thanks.

jessica mathew

great fabric! thanks for sharing the flower making site--it's really fun. you have inspired me to actually use my spoonflower account!!

gl.

snifty! is there anything the internet can't do? ;)

Anitra Cameron

OH. MY. GOSH. I Love it--the idea is wonderful, and your design is a delight! Here I sit, completely, I thought, exhausted, and now I want to start designing patterns or run for scissors and fabric or....

I should have known better than to visit your blog this late in the evening, lol.

Lisa Clarke

So cool! I'm glad to hear a review. I got a beta invitation, too, but I've been hesitating. I feel like I have to already have the perfect project in mind before I can justify the splurge :-D

tsoniki

Wow that is so very cool! I love the idea of designing your own.

Fanie!

I love, Spoonflower's idea! :-D I'm a fan! It's great that you already ordered from them. I will probably try it out as well sooner than later!

And your flowers are beautiful! Maybe you could make a tote bag with it? Lotta Jansdotter's first book has a tutorial that is great to make a tote bag even with different pieces of fabrics.

Lix

Love the fabric. Thanks for the heads up. Have joined the queue but guess is going to be a bit like getting into ravelry in the old days! Just have to hang in there.

bridget

Hi!
I like it!! Even the rectangles, good cutting guides.

Sally

That is cool! I got on the beta list, but haven't done it because I don't really know how/what to design! I love those flowers and colors. I'm going to check out that flower maker.

robyn

Love it! Even with the rectangles it looks great - and you've managed to make me worry less about receiving mine in the mail too....I just ordered my first Spoonflower batch last week. Can't *wait* to see it in person.

Liz

Love that fabric! I feel all warm and happy looking at it! Whoa! Just checked out Flower Maker. Too cool! Another hour lost on the computer (sigh).

meggiecat

Yummy design and color combos. It's so you.
When I saw the mention of the flower maker I sat up straight just like my cat. Flower maker? How did I miss that? More fun for me. Thanks.

Chris

I am going to have to stop coming over here. I just keep getting jealous.

But...

I MUST LISTEN TO PODCASTS AT WORK!!

Jeannine

This is so cool, such a great idea! The flowers are so whimsical and vidid!

futuregirl

OMG I love it!!! I was uploading something to Flickr and I saw the images in my 'friends' feed and I click-click-clicked over as fast as I could. So, so cool! The flowers rock!