Cast your vote for a second fabric!

Some time ago--like, so long ago that I'm not going to bother dredging up the post--Stephen asked you all to email me if you had any suggestions for what fabric we should offer next besides the Robert Kaufman 100% Kona cotton.  Since then, I've gotten maybe three dozen or so emails about what you all would like to see us carry.  I've heard a lot of suggestions for heavier weight cottons--"upholstery weight," "medium weight," and "canvas" are the specific terms you've used.  I've also gotten a lot of interest in linen and in organic cotton.  There have been some other odds and ends, too--rayon, microfiber, sheer silk, cotton lawn, and jersey knit among others. And just this morning, Danielle was trying to sell me on the virtues of bamboo and bamboo blends, though I haven't worked with those myself...

Now it looks like making a decision is going to happen sooner rather than later.  Stephen handed me an intriguing little booklet this morning of flappy little fabric samples to evaluate.  The plan is to put out another call for your input, order a few different rolls to run test prints on, and then make a final decision on our second fabric.

Okay, so are you ready for some options along with my brief impressions here?  Good.  One quick bit of shorthand:  each fabric option listed below is followed by a set of parentheses containing a number-slash-number, then a decimal number.  This refers to the width in inches from selvage to selvage followed by the weight in ounces.  So cotton twill (56/57, 5.6) means that the cotton twill is 56-57 inches wide and weighs 5.6 ounces per square yard.  (The Kona cotton we're printing on now weighs 4.35 ounces per square yard, by way of comparison.) This is just my own shorthand for what might be some tedious typing here.  Hopefully, you won't consider the subject tedious, though!

1. 100% cotton twill (56/57, 5.6); has a crisp feel that would be lovely for clothing or perhaps linens.
2. 100% cotton canvas (57/58, 8); feels heavy and strong and would work great in handbags, totes, or even some home-dec projects
3. a heavy brushed 100% cotton (56/57, 9.5) that seems suitable for hard-wearing home-dec projects
4. un-brushed heavy 100% cotton (56/57, 9.7) stiffer than the brushed, that would also be home-dec appropriate
5. medium weight 100% cotton, brushed (55/56, 7.2), or un-brushed (55/56, 7.35); another option  suitable for home-dec projects as well as bags and accessories
6. 100 % organic cotton (44/45, 4/3) that feels a teeny bit crisper than our current Kona, but is, of course, organic
7. 55%linen/45% cotton blend (42/43, 5/6); substantial without feeling heavy, my little 2" swatch appears to have a nice drape to it (though it's admittedly hard to tell with such a small piece)
8. 55% linen/45% rayon blend (54/55, 6); soft and supple and would work great in clothing
9. 100% linen (52/53, 6); downright meaty, less crisp than the linen/cotton blend, and probably what we all think of when we hear the word "linen"

That's a lot of options, I know, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on what sorts of items you want to make and what you'd like to make them up in.  Email me, y'all! And thanks in advance for your input.

Bug Update: International Orders

Bug update on our software release from yesterday (8-27-2008):
International orders now require a phone number -- which is a customs requirement and not something we made up -- but following the update yesterday our checkout process was not accepting phone numbers in International formats. That bug is now fixed. Apologies to the folks who got stuck in the error loop.

We also briefly had an error that affected folks checking out through Paypal. That was fixed about halfway through yesterday.

Thanks to the folks who have taken time to report bugs, and thanks to all the beta-testers for their patience.   

Shopworthy backpack

As mama of three girls, I have a special place in my heart for handmade kid accessories and clothing.  You can really tell that mama (and papa) love comes through in the things people make for their children.  I also enjoy seeing fabric designs come through that are out of the head of some small person out there.  And when those two things come together...well, the result can be very special indeed.  I think Shopworthy's first grader must be very, very proud of the new backpack made up for him with his very own drawings on fabric, don't you think?

Improvements: Lower Shipping Rates, etc.

Those of you who are already in the beta site received an email early this morning about our first set of significant site updates, which include lower shipping rates, a new multi-item shopping cart, and a change to the maximum length of a single piece of fabric you can order.

New shipping rates are here.

We're still bug-squashing on this release, so please let me know if you encounter any problems. Thanks for all the encouragement from those who have sent notes.

If you are on the waiting list and still have not received an invitation -- and there are around 2,500 of you last time I checked -- we are really, really close to sending out another round of invitations so you, too, can order fabric. Thank you very much for your patience.

And last, but not least: Many of you already know Sister Diane of Craftypod, one of the hubs of the craft blogosphere. If you only ever listen to one of her podcasts, by all means don't waste your time listening to her interview me because she has loads of really interesting shows available on her site. But she did take the time to speak with me earlier in the summer, and the result is here if you are curious. In the interview I talk a bit about our future plans for Spoonflower as well as how it came about. She's really great even if I sound goofy.

[full text of email to beta-testers is here.]

Made by Petchy

I was the victim of a stupid sewing accident last night.  I was working on this dress out of the Stylish Dress Book, a Japanese pattern book I bought recently from Pomadour, and just realizing I'd made a mistake.  As I wondered to myself whether I might pick up sewing Japanese as fast as I once learned kitchen Spanish in my professional baking days, I stepped backward, tripped over a corner of a rug, and fell hard.  One crushed antique market basket, a banged head, two scraped forearms, and a bloody cut back later...well, I think I'll give my sewing room a little breather today.  Who knew sewing could be so hazardous?

Perhaps working up some new designs would be a little easier on my body?  Or better yet, since my computer time is likely to be limited by kidnicks today, perhaps I should work on downloading this free design from Petchy to print up.   Read here about Petchy's fledgling plan to offer designs for purchase that you can upload and print with Spoonflower. I've got to hand it to you all out there for constantly coming up with surprising new things to do with our site!  And now to go download those pretty trees...    

Spoonflowering, Episode 8

This isn't the first shipment of fabric we've sent out from our new space, but it's our first video in the new space.  Photographs and video editing done by the delightful and multitalented Danielle.  I'm beginning to wish I had an intern at our house, too...

Cutting loose

I spent the morning at Spoonflower headquarters yesterday, packaging fabric for mailing--a video to come soon!--and chatting with Danielle about fabric and Photoshop and photography.  When the babysitter returned with our girls, though, it was time to get outta there and get the kids something to eat--pronto, like.  I remembered my purse, I remembered the diaper bag, I remembered the stroller, the bag of library books, the bag of snacks, the water bottles, and the girls' special stuffed animals.  I did not, however, remember my laptop.  It stayed on the office sofa all afternoon and then went with Stephen to a class for the evening before it came home with him.  That meant I had no internet access for about 10 hours--yikes!

So instead I did a little sewing, which was not a bad consolation prize at all.  While the little girls slept, my oldest daughter and I went through my sewing basket to see what we could come up with to do.  She's going into the fifth grade on Monday and we both had back-to-school clothing on our minds.  In my giant pile of cloth, we found this late 60's era purple pattern cocktail dress made of a super-heavy, nubby material--Hawaiian maybe?  Some kind of barkcloth?  I'd bought it solely for the phenomenal fabric, half-thinking that I'd turn it into a skirt for someone.  My daughter, though, wanted it as a dress.

I consider myself an advanced beginner at sewing.  I've made up many articles of clothing from patterns at this point, but haven't altered an existing garment since I was just goofing around with sewing in college.  (And I was by no means good at it back then!  I just had pretty low standards for fit and seam straightness and that kind of thing.)  But my daughter was so excited about the idea of a wild purple print dress for herself.  I took a deep breath.  And started cutting.

I cut off about 12 inches of the hem, I ripped out armhole and neckline facings, I notched liberally, I took in side seams and opened up the neckline, and pretty soon I had a passable dress that could fit a 10-year old.  But more than that?  I had a blast!   It's not fine couture or anything.  The seams are a little roll-y without those facings and the armholes are a tad too big.  My daughter loves it, though, and it felt great to just whip something up without worrying if I'd mess it up or make it look less-than-perfect.

I guess the moral of this sewing story is that I shouldn't get so hung up with sewing perfection.  Why allow myself to get frustrated about something I really love to do?  Sometimes it's just fun to bust out the scissors and start cutting, right?  Right.

Meet Danielle!

Danielle
Originally uploaded by Secretsugar

She's our first ever Spoonflower intern! Can I get a woo-hoo? Danielle is fresh from the verdant campus of UNC-Greensboro and holds a sculpture degree, enjoying sewing, photography, and painting in her spare time. (I really should have taken this photo while she was sporting her stylin' laptop case she made out of Amy Butler fabrics...) Danielle also has some work experience in a photo development lab and is gung-ho about applying her Photoshop and color profile skills to fabric. We're hoping she'll put up a post here soon about DIY methods of color-callibrating your computer monitor.

Welcome to the Spoonflower fold, Danielle!

One Yard Wonders

I was cruising around on some of your blogs today--feel free to let us know if you'd like your site to be added to this list, by the way--and ran across an exciting little tidbit on A Dress a Day.  Do y'all know about One Skein Wonders?  Here's where I have to admit that I did not know about this book, seeing as how I am totally knitting challenged.  But I do appreciate the concept a whole lot.  Sometimes you just need a little project between bigger projects, something quick and easy between big challenges, right?

Okay, getting to the exciting tidbit part here.  Authors Rebecca Yaker and Trish Hoskins are applying the concept to fabric and are currently soliciting your contributions for a book titled, One Yard Wonders.  How cool is that?  Read their guidelines and submit your ideas here.  And don't forget to sign up for their mailing list so you can find out about publication dates! 

Fresh fabric for sale!

As I've effused about many times in the last few months, I'm in the delightful position of having some truly amazing fabric designs pass through my paws on a weekly basis.  A look at any of our past videos should prove the point if you need convincing.  The only lamentable thing is that I've so far been unable to purchase my favorite designs (some of which I'd snap up in a hot minute if I could).  Offering users the option of creating storefronts is on our short list of features to add, of course, but we're not there yet.

I'm happy to see that some of our resourceful users are finding a way to sell their Spoonflower printed fabrics anyway!  Head on over to Junecraft, Sewbettie, and Nine Tomatoes for a peek at some of their lovely wares.  Stash building, anyone?

Wordle

We're all taking a much needed break this weekend after a very busy week spent moving furniture, packing fabric orders, and just generally trying to get our bearings in the new space.  I was lazing about online yesterday and ran across Wordle.net, courtesy of Suzanne at Mimilou.  Here's a Spoonflower "word cloud" I made by pasting in a bit of text from our about page. 

Since designer Jonathan Feinberg permits any images you create to be used however you wish, it's not a stretch to imagine that you could design some wordy fabric this way.  Perhaps kitchen towels with cooking related words?  A framed piece of word art for a kid's room?  Bet y'all will think of something interesting!

Space to fill

Just for the sake of scale, here's a photo of Stephen (and the baby) in the new Spoonflower space.  I don't think the photo of Gart cleaning floors yesterday really quite gave y'all an idea of why it's taking us so, so long to get this enormous space cleaned and ready.  Oh, and for those of you wondering who the heck Gart is, he's our business partner, together with his delightful and crafty wife, Anne.  They've both been on our "about us" page all along, but just in case you missed them...

Cleaning the new space

Does this look like a place where beautiful fabric will be printed? We're working on it. Whew. (that's Gart in the photo, by the way.)

Moving!

We just shipped our last from-home shipment of fabrics a couple of days ago and I find myself in a contemplative mood this morning as I consider the fact that we're moving into our official Spoonflower office space this week!  While I won't miss our house being turned upside down, doubling as a business space and mail center, there's something...I don't know, a little sweet about having had Spoonflower running out of our home with the kids oohing and ahhing over their favorite fabrics.  Those days are done.

Today, there's a cleaning crew there removing--bless them!--the inch thick layer of grime on this former sock mill's floor, along with the debris from the air-conditioning installation that just got finished up a few days ago.  I'm meeting a sitter up there tomorrow to talk to her about watching my girls on-site for me while I'm (cough) working.  Part-time working, but still working.  Maybe that's the real rub.  So far this hasn't felt all that much like work.  Bet it will once we open the proverbial floodgates and allow people to create accounts without an invitation. (So sorry to be keeping so many of you on the waiting list for an invitation while we finish up this move!)

Pictures of the new space to come soon!.  Y'all can suggest some ways to spruce it up because apparently I'm not allowed to dwell too much on decorating just now.