OOh! My Spoonflower Fabric!

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.