Ribbon Aficionado

While Stephen and I were gone to Atlanta last week, I resolved to get going with this whole craft blogging thing.  I've got to admit here that I've been reluctant to post photos of my own sewing projects because the creative talent out there is just flat out intimidating.  Really.  And then subjecting my prose to my dear spouse's daily scrutiny when he himself is such a gifted writer...well, can you blame me from feeling daunted?

Serendipitously, I found a note from Andre'a at Ribbon Aficionado in my inbox today.  She makes little girls' hair do-dads that are totally adorable AND has given me a great excuse to postpone putting my own self out there.  Seeing her cute clips makes me wish I hadn't cut off my own hair a few months ago in a fit of how-can-I-make-life-simpler brainstorming.  See what I mean?

How do I repeat an image to make a pattern?

Here's a relatively simple technique for using Photoshop to create a repeat without requiring a textile design plugin. The steps are taken from an online column by Frederick Chipkin, the author of Adobe Photoshop for Textile Design by Frederick L Chipkin.

1. Open Photoshop, open the image you want to be the basis of your repeat, then modify the canvas to reflect the size of the fabric you want to print (18"x22" for example).

2. Using the rectangular Marquee tool select the area for your repeat.

3. In the Edit menu, drag down to choose "Define pattern." In the dialog box, name your pattern and click 'OK.'

4. Deselect the Marquee (Select menu ->Deselect).

5. Go to the Edit menu and drag down to 'Fill.' In the Fill dialog box, next to 'Use" choose "Pattern." You can now choose your selected image as a custom pattern.  Click OK.

6. The area of your canvas around the original image should now be filled with your pattern.

Note that in the example below, my original image does not 'match up' on  the right/left and top/bottom, so there is a tiling effect. But it still looks nifty.

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How do I prepare a fabric design for printing?

Meggiecat wrote the other day to ask the most obvious question about printing fabric on Spoonflower, which is "what do we need to do to prepare designs?"

I've delayed my response in the hope of being able to offer a bit more technical detail, but in the absence of a perfect response I'd like to go ahead and post a few suggestions. Please forgive me if I end up needing to revise any of this [likely].

File Resolution:
240 dpi is a minimum resolution for the design you wish to repeat in a pattern. If you want to be able to scale it up after you upload it, the image will need to be at least twice that. Updated info on preparing images is here.

Image Size:
You can take an image of any size (240 dpi or greater) and repeat it to create a pattern. Alternately, you could create the pattern repeat on your own computer and then upload a large file equal in size to the amount of fabric you wish to order. For example, the fabric we will be using is 44" wide (112 cm), so if you wanted to order a yard you could create an image that is 42" (the printable area) x 36" (or close to that). The file size limit is 25 MB, so if your design is large you will almost certainly have to use the JPG rather than the RIF format.

Fabric Size:
You can order a swatch (8"x8"), a fat quarter (18"x21") or any multiple of a linear yard (up to 3 yards).  We will always recommend that you order a swatch of your design before ordering a larger quantity. That will give you a chance to examine the colors firsthand to make sure they printed as intended.

Creating Repeats:
When you upload a design to your Spoonflower gallery, you will be able to create a pattern by tiling the image, using a half-step or half-brick repeat (which staggers the tiles), or by mirroring your image. In the case of tiling, in order for the pattern not to appear to be composed of a lot of individual rectangles, the design you upload will need to be composed so that the left side of the design 'joins' to the right side, and the top of the design 'joins' to the bottom. If you have a textile design program or Photoshop expertise, you can probably do this pretty easily. For the rest of us, however, we plan to post tutorials to help you through the process of creating patterns on your own.

File Types / Color Profile:
You will want to set up your files in LAB color profile or RGB profile with 8 Bits/Channel (rather than 16), and to save (and upload) them as .TIF, .JPG, or .PNG files with flattened layers. LAB is the ideal profile for printing. We cannot print from CMYK files. Do not compress the images.

Do we have a winner?

Thanks to all of you for weighing in on the logo. The results are in (original choices appear here). The logo on the left, below, is the winner, although many of you also liked the version using the alternate font that Caroline gave us after the voting had started. They appear here side by side, but I think for now we're going to move forward with the people's choice. I like them both, really.

(if the color of the flowers looks slightly different it's because I mucked up the file somehow... they're really the same)

Cicada Studio

Michelle--who has not one, not two, but three fabulous Etsy shops--allowed us to post a photo of a one-of-a-kind pillow made from fabric she designed and printed herself.  Check out her blog for a glimpse of her sophisticated dogwood inspired fabric designs.  It's so exciting to get a taste of the creative talent out there in the sewing and crafting world!

Another thought

Caroline, our talented designer, has posted a revision of one of the logo options that offers a slightly less confusing ligature (where the 'f' meets the 'l'). If you think you might prefer this version to the one you voted on in the survey, maybe you could leave us a brief comment?

Help us choose a logo!

Vote on your favorite version of the Spoonflower logo here.

Logo ideas

Today (Monday, March 17th), we're sending out a link to vote on a new logo to those folks who've signed up to be beta-testers.

[If you haven't signed up yet to become a tester, there's still time.]

Here are the options we've asked you to rate:

Feel free to add comments and suggestions below!

Update: Caroline added another version of the option on the lower left column. Please leave a comment if you'd like to change your vote...

Still working on the logo

We are still in the process of defining the look and feel of Spoonflower, so the logo you see is temporary. At some point it might be nice to post two or three options and to let the group of testers vote on their favorite. Right now the leading candidate is something along these lines:

About Spoonflower

I hate to be coy, but we're not quite up to talking about ourselves just yet. Busy, busy, busy trying to get a new service off the ground.

[You can read what other people are saying, however, here.]

In case you haven't figured it out already, Spoonflower will offer a new resource for Internet-savvy crafters, creative folks who sew and quilt, who love fabric and design and making beautiful things.

Spoonflower is for individuals who talk about, display, swap and sometimes sell their hand made products over the Internet through blogs, individual web sites and marketplaces like Etsy and  eBay.

The people we're here to serve represent a cultural wave of do-it-yourselfers for whom the creation of new things -- from quilts and pillows to videos, t-shirts, blogs and code for tweaking cellphones -- is an essential form of self-expression.

We're currently located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina but Spoonflower will be accessible to people everywhere.

If you have any questions, please email Stephen. You can sign up to hear about our site when it launches in test mode here.

Interested in Spoonflower?

Thanks for visiting Spoonflower, a soon-to-be-launched resource for folks who love to sew and make beautiful things.

By signing up through the link below you will allow us to notify you when the beta version of our Web site is launched. Beta testers get to see a site in its earliest stages when there are likely to be bugs and missing features, so it's not for everyone. But in return for testing the site and sharing your suggestions with us you will not only earn our eternal gratitude, you'll also join a select crowd that gets to hear about a cool new service before anyone else.

Click here to sign-up for the beta.

[We hate spam as much as you, so please rest assured we will respect and protect your information.]

Thank you, everyone!

We received well over 400 responses to our modest Spoonflower Interest Survey and it is clear that -- however the details may vary -- LOTS of you are interested in designing your own fabric!

Special thanks to the fantastic folks at Sew, Mama, Sew who posted a link to our survey, as well as to Burda Style and the fabulous craft-bloggers who also posted links: MeggieCat, Secret Cave of the Sugar Mama, MyLittleSewingSpot, and SadieAndLance.

I know you are anxious to get started, but please bear with us for a few weeks. We hope to get things around here up and running by May.

While we wait for the big show to begin, I'd like to invite folks to submit images of things they've made -- fun bags, clothes, pillows, and the like -- for us to post here (with a link back to your blog, Etsy shop, or what-have-you). You can send photos or photo-links to kim at spoonflower dot com.

Welcome to Spoonflower.  Our ears are always open. There is much more to come.