Fabric Of the Week: 2010 Fabric Calendars - Vote now!

We have another amazing batch of entries this week. Voting is now open and the rules are the same as last week: you can vote (by clicking and 'selecting' with a check mark the images on the polling page) for as many designs as you like, but you can only go to the polling page once. Submit your ballot by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. We'll keep the results of the voting under wraps until next week. 

VOTE here.

Please note: we won't be sending out an email next week (Thanksgiving), but we will Tweet and blog the winner. We've also got some cool giveaways planned, so stay tuned.

This week's entries are:

• 2010 Poster Calendar by michellebrusegaard
• yellow wheat 2010 calendar by deniselevy
• Calendar2010 by karidesign
• Calendar 2010 - The Spirit by quiltsmith
• Ivy Mae Calendar by edubgraphicart
• 2010 Calendar by joybucket
• 2010 shining in by darcibeth
• Pepys by jasmo
• diamond-calendar by audreyclayton
• Happily Ever After 2010 by applesandorange
• 2010 Hanging Calendar by jesseesuem
• A Story in the Moon Calendar by karenharveycox
• 2010 Lace Calendar in Berry by strive
• bird_calendar by daniellehanson
• Ahoy 2010! by nadjagirod
• peace pixie 2010 calendar by indi
• Flower pattern calender by antonybriggs
• Gem Calendar by kristopherk
• Woodlanders Calendar by wildolive
• calendar by vo
• 2010 by whatkatesaw
• Loose Leaf Calendar by wickedmint
• 2010 Seasonal Calendar by leoraeffinger
• CandyCityCalendar2010 by puncezilla
• 2010 Herb of the Year Calendar by pixeldust
• Sew Fun! 2010 Calendar by smilerecipe
• Monster Calendar 2010 by musterartig
• Sea Life Calendar by mochistudios
• Cottage Industrialist Calendar by cottageindustrialist
• Weather or not 2010 calendar by snuss
• Minimalist Edge 2010 Calendar by aimeeelisabeth

Weird Fish Win! Spoonflower Fabric Of the Week Winner for Nov. 19

The votes are in! Congratulations go to Leigh R, whose Weird Fishes took the top spot out of all 72 of the designs submitted. [You can review the rules of the competition here.]  I think our new polling system -- in which individuals could vote for as many designs as they liked, but no more than once for each -- was a success. Final results are:

• Weird Fishes by Leigh 622
• Swim against the stream by Yvonne Herbst 474
• FishSpoonflower by edubgraphicart 377
• Tiger_Fish by Alex Morgan 358
• Aqua School by gottacre8! 356
• Fish Are Nice by Mary Brewer 354
• fishtails2 by elizabeth Mckenzie 330
• fishsoup by Stefanie von Hoesslin 327
• Swimmin' with the fishes by Vanessa 327
• Koi_bw by Daniela Caine 325
• Matryoshka Fish Kaleidoscope by Wee Folk Art 307
• Koi Blossom by Julie Shaw 277
• 'Koi + Lotus' by monkeybutt 271
• fish-napkin-design by katy keuter 200
• Octopus Black by Laura Wilson 199
• Goldfish_Bubbles by outofthebox 195
• fish_pattern by Connie Lim 166
• coralfish by hadley hutton 157
• mermaid10 by connielou 149
• Fish Mirrored Circles by Susan Mentrak 146
• Ocean View by Patty McNally 144
• fishiesunderthesea by carey_perez 138
• betabowls4color by elisabeth 131
• trio_fish by Samantha Cheung 131
• FishFishFish by Annelie Hervi 128
• CoralWaterTurquoiseFish by Michele Ouellet 128
• fishies - contest by Monica Meehan 127
• Fish Fry by Adriana Hernandez 117
• cocofish by corentine 115
• Jellyfish Peek-a-boo by Marilyn Patrizio 111
• swimmy by Kate Austin 108
• fish by Tina Rose 106
• Blinking Outside The Bag by Kim Niles 104
• blue fish by Laura L. Greaves 104
• whimsical_fish_1d by vicki jenkins 102
• Fish Scales by halahblue 93
• 4-color-bloop-a-rama by Joan De Lurio 93
• koi joy by Star Primm 93
• ed fish, blue fish, yellow...' by Lori Howe 88
• Fish Town by Jolene Forcier 80
• spoonflowerfishcarmen by ohcarmie 77
• Paisley Fish by beckarahn 73
• SHARKS__6X10 by eliza 73
• Goldfish a la William Morris by Gretchen Little 72
• HalibuTartan by b_mac_b 68
• fish shoal by Tanja Loeser 67
• fourfishes_2_2 by Linn Bodur 61
• fish with hands and feet 2 by humpty 58
• fish fabric by James McCullough 54
• jpk_fishy by Melissa Ditalo 51
• sf-frilly-fish-w-black by beena_singhal 47
• Fun Fish Circles and Stars ... by Kris K 45
• fish by Lara 42
• Ocean View by Noah 39
• Disgruntled Fish Pattern by Linda Tieu 39
• fish by moonbeam 37
• SF_FishContest_B_11-2-09 by Sarah Nussbaumer 36
• FishBones by Lisa Dawson 35
• Hello_Fishy by Cathy McLeod 35
• here_fishy_fishy by Joy Lamphere 35
• gonefishin by bandanna gonefishin by bandanna 34
• Psychedelic Fish by Norman Sherfield 30
• reef_fish by Angela McGrew 27
• fishsoup by Jane Crowe 26
• FishFuillard by edzellinni 22
• fishes by Debec 20
• Funky_80s_Fish by Sandra Stewart 20
• Fishy_Wishes by Lisa Rene Anderson 16
• JellyFish by Tamara Hensley 15
• Fishies by Aimee Elisabeth 11
• vll_fish_2-ch by victorialasher 10
• fish bone plate by Kweli Kitwana 7

Thank you to everyone who participated! Your creativity astounds and inspires.

Notes and Reminder About Calendar-Themed Fabric Of the Week Contest

Reminder: the deadline for our 2010 calendar contest is Monday, November 16th at noon, EST. The entry form and rules for it -- and the other contests that have been announced so far -- is here.

• Keep in mind that the hanging fabric calendar has to fit on a fat quarter of fabric which is, in the case of our quilting cotton, 21 x 18 inches (45.7 cm x 53.3cm), A couple of people have written to ask if their design they upload to Spoonflower is oriented horizontally, will it show up in the voting lying on its side? Answer: We'll all display all the calendars in the voting right-side up.
• Also, please be sure to take advantage of the tagging field on your fabric details page to tag your calendar design with the word calendar.
•  We will preview every design as a fat quarter of fabric. It's fine if there is white space around the design, but any white space will show up in the preview. A piece of fabric that is 21"x18"  previewed at 150 dpi will require starting with a digital image that is 3150 pixels by 2700 pixels. If necessary, you can use the 'change size' option on the fabric layout page to reduce the size of the design to fit in the fat quarter.
• Unless your calendar design fits exactly into the fat quarter area, you'll want to choose the center option for layout.

If you have any other last minute questions, please post them in the comment field for this post. As of this writing, we have only nine entries for the calendar contest (not that I'm complaining -- nine will be easy to set up for voting!).

72 colorful fish on the wall... Vote for the fishy fabric of the week!

As you may remember, our Fish & Colors Fabric Of the Week contest had two guidelines: use fish as a motif and employ the restricted palette of colors described here. Well, seventy-two designers took up the challenge and we are -- in a novel twist on our usual contest procedures -- offering up ALL of the fabrics in a mega-vote-apalooza this week. You can vote for as many or as few fabrics as you like. At the end of voting (on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 6pm EST), the design with the most votes will win. Just to make it even more of a free-for-all, we won't be showing results for the contest as they come in. So you'll have to wait  until next week to find out the winner.

Also of note, the poll consists of three pages this week that are served up in random order from visitor to visitor. The designs on each page are also randomized per visitor. That will keep any single group of designs from being hobbled due to bad placement.

You can only vote once, and you can do it here.

The contestants this week are:

1. Psychedelic Fish by Norman Sherfield
2. Fish Fry by Adriana Hernandez
3. Fishies by Aimee Elisabeth
4. gonefishin by bandanna
5. Paisley Fish by beckarahn
6. HalibuTartan by b_mac_b
7. sf-frilly-fish-w-black by beena_singhal
8. spoonflowerfishcarmen by ohcarmie
9. fishiesunderthesea by carey_perez
10. 'Koi + Lotus' by monkeybutt
11. Aqua School by gottacre8!
12. mermaid10 by connielou
13. fish with hands and feet 2 by humpty
14. cocofish by corentine
15. Goldfish_Bubbles by outofthebox
16. Fish Scales by halahblue
17. vll_fish_2-ch by victorialasher
18. FishSpoonflower by edubgraphicart
19. FishFuillard by edzellinni
20. fish by moonbeam
21. Fishy_Wishes by Lisa Rene Anderson
22. betabowls4color by elisabeth
23. SHARKS__6X10 by eliza
24. Koi Blossom by Julie Shaw
25. Swim against the stream by Yvonne Herbst
26. FishBones by Lisa Dawson
27. 4-color-bloop-a-rama by Joan De Lurio
28. coralfish by hadley hutton
29. Goldfish a la William Morris by Gretchen Little
30. fishes by Debec
31. fishtails2 by elizabeth Mckenzie
32. whimsical_fish_1d by vicki jenkins
33. fishsoup by Stefanie von Hoesslin
34. fourfishes_2_2 by Linn Bodur
35. fish fabric by James McCullough
36. fishsoup by Jane Crowe
37. Fish Mirrored Circles by Susan Mentrak
38. swimmy by Kate Austin
39. Blinking Outside The Bag by Kim Niles
40. fish-napkin-design by katy keuter
41. fish bone plate by Kweli Kitwana
42. Fun Fish Circles and Stars ... by Kris K
43. ed fish, blue fish, yellow...' by Lori Howe
44. blue fish by Laura L. Greaves
45. Weird Fishes by Leigh
46. Funky_80s_Fish by Sandra Stewart
47. Jellyfish Peek-a-boo by Marilyn Patrizio
48. fishies - contest by Monica Meehan
49. Hello_Fishy by Cathy McLeod
50. Ocean View by Patty McNally
51. Ocean View by Noah
52. Matryoshka Fish Kaleidoscope by Wee Folk Art
53. FishFishFish by Annelie Hervi
54. koi joy by Star Primm
55. CoralWaterTurquoiseFish by Michele Ouellet
56. fish by Lara
57. Fish Are Nice by Mary Brewer
58. trio_fish by Samantha Cheung
59. SF_FishContest_B_11-2-09 by Sarah Nussbaumer
60. here_fishy_fishy by Joy Lamphere
61. jpk_fishy by Melissa Ditalo
62. Tiger_Fish by Alex Morgan
63. JellyFish by Tamara Hensley
64. Koi_bw by Daniela Caine
65. fish shoal by Tanja Loeser
66. fish by Tina Rose
67. fish_pattern by Connie Lim
68. Fish Town by Jolene Forcier
69. Disgruntled Fish Pattern by Linda Tieu
70. Swimmin' with the fishes by Vanessa
71. Octopus Black by Laura Wilson
72. reef_fish by Angela McGrew

Go vote.

Doll Panels Fabric of the week winner: Jazzy Jasmine

Rosanna Bernstein of Miami Beach rounded up the most votes in the finals of our doll panels contest. She's a grandmother and this is the first time she's ever entered her work into a contest, so she tells us it's especially exciting for her to see Jazzy win. You can find more of Rosanna's work in her Etsy shop, and you can buy your own Jazzy doll kit here.

Final doll panel voting results:

1. Jazzy Jasmine Dolly from Japan by Rosanna Bernstein    385    20.25%
2. 'Robot Dolls' by Jessee Maloney    291    15.31%
3. stuffed vegetables: roots by Joan De Lurio    241    12.68%
4. Little Geisha Girls by kismutt   233    12.26%
5. 4 little gnomes by apoo    181    9.52%
6. Ninja Beans Panel by Mochi Studios      167    8.78%
7. bright owl by Mel Latthitham    130    6.84%
8. Humpty_Shelf_Sitter by Sylvia Ion    107    5.63%
9. 'Dollpanel_triorio1' by Renule    99    5.21%
10. 14"/ 35cm Kawaii Kokeshi Dolls by Gila von Meissner   67    3.52%

Thanks to all the designers who participated and to all of you who voted!

You can check out the schedule of our upcoming themed contests here.

Last few hours for voting in the doll panel finals!

If you haven't voted yet, please make sure to let us know which of the doll panel finalists is your favorite! The poll closes today at 6pm EST.

Later this week you'll get a chance to vote on our Fish and Colors Fabric of the Week participants. Should be fun.

Doll Panel Finals! Help Choose the Winner

Ok, we've chosen the top five designs from last week, printed them along with the top five designs from the week before, and it now gives us great pleasure to present the top ten finalists from our doll panel design Fabric Of the Week contest. They are:

• 'Robot Dolls' by Jessee Maloney
• 4 little gnomes by apoo
• 'Dollpanel_triorio1' by Renule 
• Humpty_Shelf_Sitter by Sylvia Ion
• 14"/ 35cm Kawaii Kokeshi Dolls by Gila von Meissner
• stuffed vegetables: roots by Joan De Lurio  
• Little Geisha Girls by kismutt 
• bright owl by Mel Latthitham  
• Jazzy Jasmine Dolly from Japan by Rosanna Bernstein    
• Ninja Beans Panel by Mochi Studios  

You can vote (once) here, and follow the results -- with a one hour delay -- here.

Thanks to everyone who participated. It's too bad we couldn't run the contest using photos of the completed dolls themselves, which were just fantastic. Do take a minute to check some of the great doll photos in the Spoonflower Flickr pool for examples (like Audry & Pippin here from MyTinyStar). See the previous blog entry for upcoming contests!

More Themed Fabric Of the Week Contests: Calendars, Celestial Designs By Hand & Children's Clothing Patterns

Entries for the Fish and Colors contest closed on Monday with -- whew -- just under 80 entries. We plan to post all of those fabrics for voting next week, but in the meantime below is a short list of upcoming themed Fabric of the Week contests, along with entry forms and deadlines. This will allow the ambitious among you to get started early. Please do keep in mind that we reserve the right to modify or clarify these guidelines as needed as the actual deadlines approach, so check the blog now and then for new notes. We'll probably also post one or two additional themes over the next weeks to fill in the gaps in our contest calendar.

Contest rules and Q&A can be found here.

Calendars: Using no more than a fat quarter of quilting-weight fabric, design a hanging wall calendar for 2010. A fat quarter is 21 inches by 18 inches (53.3 cm x 45.7cm). Deadline is Monday, November 16, 2009 at noon EST. For inspiration, see these lovely calendars from the brilliant Michelle of Cicada Studio. [pls note that she did not print her calendars through Spoonflower, but used her own process] Entry form for calendars is HERE.

Celestial: Starting from a non-digital piece of art -- collage, painting or drawing -- create a fabric design with a celestial theme (stars, moon, sun, planets, clouds, winds, heavens). You can manipulate the design digitally in order to create the file you upload to Spoonflower, but the more non-digital the art, the better. We'll post an example on the blog soon for inspiration. Deadline is Monday, November 23, 2009, at noon EST. Entry form for Celestial is HERE.

Children's Clothing: Create a sewing pattern and design for an article of children's clothing that includes -- in one yard -- all the pieces, cut lines, seam allowances and short instructions printed directly on the fabric. This is obviously a tough one, but we know some of you are up to it. [Probably not a good one for folks not familiar with using vector art programs.] Deadline is Monday, December 14, 2009, at noon EST. Entry form for Children's Clothing theme is HERE.

Post your ideas for upcoming Fabric Of the Week contest themes!

Last time we solicited ideas for themes to use in our Fabric Of the Week contest, lots of folks weighed in with great suggestions. For the next couple of days, I'd love to open up the comment thread one more time to see if we can gather even more good ideas. What do you think? What should our next contest theme consist of?

Ready to vote again? Doll Panels, Round 2

Ok, after some good feedback on a flawed voting process last week, we've decided to experiment with the way we handle voting during weeks when we hold semifinal rounds. Instead of having to choose a single favorite design per page, you can vote for as many -- or as few -- as you want. This week we've spread 37 designs over three pages, and on each page you can 'check' all the designs you really like and then move on to the next page. The vote totals will obviously be much higher, but everyone will get a chance to vote for designs they like without being forced to skip over one excellent design in favor of a slightly more excellent one. That's what the finals are for, right? We still plan to take the top five designs in the voting and run them against the top five from last week for the final round. Vote here.

The contestants in round two of our doll panel-themed fabric of the week contest are:

Heidi Crawford  dollpanel
Rochelle Hughes nancy_ann_drawing
Stephanie Faith This Doll Loves
Kim Niles Christmas Westie Doll Panels
mel latthitham bright owl
Tina Rose annabelle_doll
Jane Pierce aka zJayne Galley Girl
Chelsee Gobin  What a Doll ! - Happy/Sad
Michelle @ Wee Folk Art weefolkart-gnome-dolls-four-colors
Jean  img056
vo monkey_doll_all_tealsharpened
kismutt Little Geisha Girls
blueberryblonde Nurse Berry
Carrie Kirby Clementine thinking
connie kaiser Gingerbread Doll
susalabim doll_panel
Kim Timothy Nesting Dolls
Joan De Lurio stuffed vegetables: roots
Mochi Studios Ninja Beans Panel
Emily Hawke astronaut
Gretchen Schroeder Baby Saguaros
Kathy fronczak  Gnome_for_the_Holidays_Dolls
jackie the weebotts
TurquoiseCro Pink Rose
Cate Anevski The Pact Doll Panel
melanie hamilton catrinaFatQuarter
Dawn Huntington ChristmasBoggie
Jordan Perme wonderland_flip_doll
Star Primm audrey_and_pippin
Uptown_girl  Winter Dolly
Katy Tanis Teddy Bears of the World
Sarah Nussbaumer Cats in pajamas
Rosanna Bernstein Jazzy Jasmine Dolly from Japan
emily  ready for play
kari DollPattern
Aliza   Rich Doll Poor Doll
smilerecipe Kawaii Kokeshi

Good luck to all!

The top five vote-getters from last week, by the way, are listed below. These five doll panel designs will appear again next week in the final voting.

Jessee Maloney 'Robot Dolls'
apoo 4 little gnomes
Renule 'Dollpanel_triorio1'
Sylvia Ion Humpty_Shelf_Sitter
Gila von Meissner  14"/ 35cm Kawaii Kokeshi Dolls

And for those of you who pulling together costumes this weekend for yourselves or your little ones, have a happy Halloween.

Fabric Of the Week: Fish & Colors Theme - deadline Nov. 2

When I posted about the upcoming Fabric Of the Week theme in our email last week, I made two mistakes:

1) The deadline for submitting your design is Monday, November 2, 2009 at noon, EST -- NOT November 5th, as I wrote in the email.

2) In addition to the prescribed palette of colors, I wrote initially that you could use only white. Upon further consideration, we decided that white AND black are both ok to use. Apologies for the late modification!

You can read more about the rules for entry and find the form to submit your Spoonflower design for the contest here. 

Due to widespread dissatisfaction with the voting methods used in recent semifinal rounds,  the upcoming voting this week will allow you to vote for as many -- or as few -- finalist candidates as you like in our doll panel design contest. So stay tuned!

Fabric Of the Week: Vote for your favorite doll panels (round 1)

Once again we were blown away by all the responses to this week's contest theme. With 77 entries in the Doll Panel contest, once again we'll be breaking the contest into two weeks of semifinal voting with a third week for the finals.

Week one has thirty-nine designs, spread out over four pages in the voting. You can vote for up to one design per page (although a vote on each page is not required) by clicking on the design you like best (a green check mark appears on the image when you select it). We'll take the top five designs from this week and the top five from next week and run them the week after -- with photos -- in the final round. [note: I originally wrote to the participating designers that we'd take the top fifteen designs, but we've since decided just to run ten finalists]

There's one other point that may deserve explanation. As you look through the entries you will notice that not everyone interpreted the idea of 'doll panels' the same way. That's our fault, really, because we failed to set out a technical definition of 'doll panels' in our entry form. As usual, we've accepted all of the entries regardless and we'll leave it to the crafty Spoonflower community to decide which approach to 'doll panels' it most favors.

VOTE HERE. The participants in week 1 are:

Beth Parker Obama Doll
Joysmom 'dozen_faces'
Rochelle Fugate Birthday Girl
Joanne C. Harper Saint Nick in Green
Diana Symes dolls
Julie Shaw Curlicue Girl
Kweli Kitwana MyAffirmDoll
Renule 'Dollpanel_triorio1'
Marie Eiriksson pigeboldlillagul
Sylvia Ion Humpty_Shelf_Sitter
Kelly Grooters monster_dolls
jennifer borrell anderson out of doors girls
peggy gatto 2_copy
katy keuter nesting-dolls
Cathy Comora 'The_Ta_Ta_Dolls'
Jessee Maloney 'Robot Dolls'
Laura Wilson Build Paint Bake Sew Dolls
Kelli Perkins perkinsdolls
Crittie M. Gay Sassy Dolls
Annelie Hervi Dollpanels
Lisa Rene Anderson Spoonflower_doll_panel_LRA
Cathy Bullington vudo2
Leigh Forest Sprites (Mini Dolls)
Shala Kerrigan Flower Kokeshi Dolls
Lynn Baron twobloomfairy
Stacy Campbell-Kraft Darla_the_doll
Leanna Maksymiuk gnome_grey
Linn Bodur doll1
Valorie Wilson steampunkdoll
Jen Addotta matroyshka_nesting_dolls
apoo 4 little gnomes
Gila von Meissner 4"/ 35cm Kawaii Kokeshi Dolls
Elizabeth McKenzie vincent van gogh ...departed artist doll
Ginette Callaway Beauty Large
Linda Tieu  Singing Doll Boy Panel
Katie Bailey Kawaii Kokeshi
Lindsay Nightingale The Extra's
Karen cox Northern Light Dreams
Sharyl Chow Sailor Kitty

The Numbers Are In: Congratulations to Katie Daisy for winning Fabric Of the Week

The Fabric Of the Week winner in our numbers-themed design contest is Katie Lombardo (Katie Daisy) an artist and illustrator who also runs an Etsy shop called The Wheatfield. The final round had many lovely and original designs, but "Candy Coated Numbers" came out on top.

If you want to refresh your memory on the finalists, you can see them all in our numbers-fabric Flickr set. You can also see how the final voting turned out here.

For the first time this week you don't actually have to truck over to Etsy to buy the winning fabric, it's available for sale on Spoonflower itself! So buy it here for as long as Katie decides to keep it up for sale. Hurray!

Fabric Designs With Numbers: Vote For Your Favorite Fabric Of the Week Finalist

Once again this week, we fudged a little and have sixteen -- rather than the planned fifteen -- finalist designs based on the voting last week. From forty down to sixteen is not bad, and ended up with a really diverse group of designs for our Numbers-themed Fabric Of the Week competition.

You'll have only one vote this week, so choose carefully. On the polling page you'll see a photo of all of the fabrics and then a series of squares showing the designs themselves. You'll vote by clicking on the design you like the best and when you do so you should see a green check mark appear on the design. Submit your vote by clicking the 'done' button at the bottom of the polling page. Voting happens here. Please vote only one time!

Based on the voting last week, our finalists are:

• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/99676    Candy Coated Numbers by Katie Lombardo
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/99753    dropping_sixes_and_nines7 by Nancy Rink
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/99721    hermes number tumble by Darci Falin
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101138    'Numberology' by tammikins
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101216    tree2 by Star Primm
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/100529    Numero Uno by Heather Dutton
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/100952    Retro_clocks_and_Numbers by Cynthia Frenette
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101027    ready_or_not_two by Joy Lamphere
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101217   'NumberBlocks' by monkeybutt
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101260    Five_Little_Ducks by Sylvia Ion
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101270    Big_Fat_Zero by Alex Morgan
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/99750    typewriterbw by Lauren Dahl
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101157    fractions by Michelle Freedman
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/100779    NumberFun by kari
• http://www.spoonflower.com/explore/101350    4_four_tile by Sarah Meyer
• http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_entry/101195 numbers2ndtryallflat by Lauren Hunt

The deadline for submitting doll panels for next week's contest is Monday, October 19th at noon EST.

Questions about Spoonflower's doll panel fabric design contest

As you may remember, next week's fabric design contest is specifically for doll panels. [Deadline is Monday, October 19th, at noon, EST. Entry form and details are here.]

We've received a couple of good questions about this particular Fabric Of the Week theme and I thought it would be a good idea to post the questions and responses here in case anyone else is wondering the same thing. [questions below paraphrased from our scrapbooking friend KarenHarveyCox]

o What size should I make the doll panels?

They can be any size, but we will preview the panels in the contest as 1-yard pieces rather than quarter-yards, which is what we usually show for contests, so size your design to display well at one-yard. A yard of quilting weight is, by default, a 6,300 pixel canvas (42" x 150 pixels). So if your doll panel is 1,575 pixels wide, it will repeat four times across the width of the fabric preview. If it is 1,050 pixels wide it will repeat six times across. A  yard is 5,400 pixels tall by default. To repeat your panel twice vertically, it would need to be 2,700 pixels tall.

o Does my doll panel have to show the front and back of the doll?

Not required, but cool.

o Spoonflower seems to have lots of doll panels, teddy bear panels, etc. I'd like to design an apron panel. If I do that, how do I size it?

As with all files on Spoonflower, we don't alter or adjust the file you upload in any way. If you want to create an apron panel, you'll need to design it yourself using a graphics program of some sort. If one-yard of canvas is enough to make your apron, you should try to design your panel to a one-yard canvas. In the case of quilting-weight cotton, you should design to a 6300 pixel by 5400 pixel space (42" x 36" at 150 pixels per inch). Large designs that take up an entire yard will almost certainly have to be saved either as PNGs or JPGs rather than TIFs in order to get them under our 30MB upload limit.

If anyone else has questions about the doll panel design theme, please post them in the comments!

Fabric Of the Week: Numbers - Semifinals Voting!

As we've come to expect, the announcement last week of another design theme challenge inspired an avalanche of creativity. Last week's theme was fabrics using numbers and we received forty submissions. For the voting this week you'll have four pages to go through with ten designs per page. You can vote for one favorite on each page. Next week we'll take the top fifteen vote-getters and put them up for another vote as finalists to determine the next fabric of the week.

We're trying out a new tool for running surveys, so forgive us if it still seems a little rough around the edges. One of the advantages of our new survey is that it is a bit more secure than the old one so we can easily eliminate efforts by any one individual to vote many times for a single design. The downside of our new security is that it limits votes by location, rather than individual computer. So that may make it a bit difficult to vote if you're sharing an office or house with other Spoonflower fans. We'll try it this week and see how it goes, but if you have feedback or suggestions please leave them in the comment thread on this post.

Get out and vote!

Our intrepid textile designers this week are:

1. chiffres by Corentine Georges
2. number_bumper by apoo
3. twelveoclocklunchtime by Linda Tieu
4. Candy Coated Numbers by Katie Lombardo
5. typewriterbw by Lauren Dahl
6. dropping_sixes_and_nines7 by Nancy Rink
7. mmmat6510's organic numbers by Melinda Mathews
8. Numbermals by Neris Paris
9. Fish Alive by Julie Shaw
10. Numero Uno by Heather Dutton
11. Numble1 by Anna
12. vll_numbers_6_26_fabric_5 by Victoria Lasher
13. number by Ky Deslatte
14. numbers by Valorie Wilson
15. NumberFun by kari
16. calculations by Dalit Pessach
17. Fairies_Can_Count_too_you_know by Gila von Meissner
18. numbers and things by Jane Marlow
19. hermes number tumble by Darci Falin
20. Spell My Name in Binary by FreakGeekUnique
21. Retro_clocks_and_Numbers by Cynthia Frenette
22. Retro-Numbers by Chantele McPhee
23. PalaceScript26 by Gregory Campbell
24. ready_or_not_two by Joy Lamphere
25. 'Numberology' by tammikins
26. fractions by Michelle Freedman
27. retro_123 by Virginia O
28. Crayon_Numbers-ch by Cynthia Strickland
29. Numbers in Numbers by jackie
30. 'NumberBlocks' by monkeybutt
31. DigiTartan by Bonnie MacBird
32. numbers2ndtryallflat by lauren hunt
33. tree2 by Star Primm
34. Five_Little_Ducks by Sylvia Ion
35. NumberFabricSpoonflower by Amy Kuhl Cox
36. Big_Fat_Zero by Alex Morgan
37. numbers2 by elisabeth
38. just_a_number by Sandra Stewart
39. DollsonParade2 by Kweli Kitwana
40. 4_four_tile by Sarah Meyer

Spoonflower Spoons & Flowers: Fleur de Cuillère Wins Fabric Of the Week

Congratulations to Heather Dutton of hang tight studio! Her Fleur de Cuillère won out over an inspiring field of entrants in our Spoons-and-Flowers-themed fabric design contest.

One of the cool things about the Spoonflower community, as most of you know, is how many amazingly talented amateurs use our site to create fabric and try out ideas. Anyone who can put together a digital design can create fabric using Spoonflower, and many of the efforts we see -- even from people trying this for the first time -- are really fun and creative. [Anyone remember Kim's flower and bees fabric? It was her first effort at creating digital art.] But in my mind what makes our community even more cool is that we also have professional textile designers mixing it up elbow-to-elbow with the amateurs. I mention this because in glancing at Heather Dutton's web site, it appears that she is a professional who also does this sort of thing for companies like Pottery Barn and Starbucks as well as for fun. It makes me happy to see designers of many experience levels inspiring and sharing with one another.

At any rate, you can buy Heather's Fleur de Cuillère fabric for the next six days only from our Etsy shop. And thanks to all seventy of the designers who participated in this theme! You all rock.

Fab Fabric Finalists for Fabric Of the Week Spoons and Flowers Theme

We started with an eye-popping seventy submitted designs last week. We've taken the top fifteen vote getters and narrowed them down to just sixteen finalists [we said fifteen last week, but there was a tie for fifteenth place!]. This week you'll have only one vote, and when voting closes next Tuesday we'll have our next Fabric Of the Week winner. Good luck and have fun! Voting closes on Tuesday, October 6.

Vote here. Follow the results in real time here.

The finalists are:

1. Nasturtiums Spoons Mosaic by Jane Walker
2. Spooning Orchid by Cynthia Strickland
3. Spoon and flower by cynthiafrenette
4. spoonsflowerslion by Emily Whittaker
5. Spoon Flower Festival by geemarie
6. Spoonflowers4 by Rosey_Lady
7. Fleur de Cuillère by Heather Dutton
8. Flower_Spoons_and_Bumble_Bees by Jennie Baer
9. my-grandmother_s-spoon by katy keuter
10. grow_where_you_grow_best by kate_ryskamp
11. blooming spoons by LucindaNewtonDunn
12. Crazy_Spoon_Flowers by Sandra Stewart
13. lovinspoonful by Michelle Freedman
14. spoons-made-from-flowers by royalforest
15. My_Soonflower by Alex Morgan
16. 'spoons_and_flowers' by susalabim

Thanks to everyone who participated! We really needed more finalist spots to do justice to all the creative talent on display last week.

Thanks to everyone who participated! We really needed more finalist spots to do justice to all the creative talent on display last week.

Two New Themed Fabric Design Contests: Numbers and Doll Panels

Because themed Fabric Of the Week contests are turning out to be so much fun, we're going to keep running with the idea for a while longer. Pulling from some of the stellar suggestions we received when we posted about themes a couple of weeks ago, we've got two new contest themes to announce, the first on a short turnaround and the second on a longer time frame so you have a chance to gather your creative wits. They are:

Numbers. Simple enough, right? Design a fabric using numbers. Deadline is this Monday, October 5, at noon EST. Entry form and details are here.

Doll Panels. One of the coolest uses of digital textile printing is to create dolls and other plush toys. At Spoonflower we get to see people doing cool stuff along these lines all the time. So the next contest theme -- with a longer time frame for entry -- is dolls. Deadline is Monday, October 19, at noon, EST. Entry form and details are here. [for an example, see the talented Jennifer Vallez of Sophie and Lili.]

Fabric Of the Week Semi-Finals: Spoons and Flowers and on and on

It's Thursday morning and as I sit here typing and taking slow sips of much-needed coffee, exhaustion mingles with astonishment. As you may remember, over the past month or so we ran two holiday-themed Fabric Of the Week contests and got quite a few entries -- enough to challenge the primitive logistics of running our little contest. So -- just to give ourselves a bit of a break - we decided that the next design theme should be obscure. If it's a really narrow theme, went our thinking, we'll get only a few entries and that will make next week into an easy one. So as a theme we chose fabric designs that included "spoons and flowers." Narrow, right? Well we got seventy entries (in four days). Creativity thrives on adversity, does it not? You folks are amazing. And I am really tired.

Because we had seventy entries this week and didn't want to turn 'Spoons and Flowers' into a four-week contest, we've done things a bit differently this time around. Regular voters know that we usually print samples of all the competing fabrics and photograph them for the voting. This time we did not. When you click on the voting link this week instead of photos you'll see digital versions of the designs rendered as they would look in repeat on a fat quarter of fabric (21" x 18"). There are seven pages of designs with 10 designs per page (and lots of good ones on the back pages, so keep going until the end). You can cast up to three votes per page, but you don't have to cast any votes on a page unless you see a design or designs you really love. We gave you three votes per page in case all your favorite designs end up on one page of the poll.

At the close of voting next week (Tuesday), we will take the top fifteen vote-getting designs, print them on fabric, photograph them and post them for voting in a final round in which you will have only one vote (on Thursday). That's how we'll come up with the winner.

In the meantime, thanks and congratulations to the amazing folks who put their creativity to work on the task of creating fabric designs that use both spoons and flowers. Take a look through the entries -- there is some really lovely work.

Vote here. Follow the results in real time here.

The entrants are:

1) db_spoon_and_flower_03 by Darci Falin

2) spoonflower-ed by Alice Cochran

3) Nasturtiums Spoons Mosaic by Jane Walker

4)'4SpoonsOfFlowers' by auntiecats

5) Spooning Orchid by Cynthia Strickland

6) Spoonflower_contest by Sylvia Ion

7) My_Milkshake_Brings by Corrie Jeffords

8) Measuring Spoons by disgustedcats

9) Spoon and flower by cynthiafrenette

10) vll_april_showers_may_bring_spoonflowers by victorialasher

11) SP_GD by Gail Paula DeLeon

12) 9_09_Spoonflower_final11 by electricgoddess33

13) bakersspoonflowers by elisabeth

14) spoonsflowerslion by Emily Whittaker

15) flower_spoon_fabric_idea by nanayane

16) Spoon Flower Festival by geemarie

17) Spoonflowers4 by Rosey_Lady

18) spoonflower by hadleyhutton

19) Fleur de Cuillère by Heather Dutton

20) EPSN7698_copy by this_n_that

21) Flower_Spoons_and_Bumble_Bees by Jennie Baer

22) spoonflower_owl_2 by Gila von Meissner

23) 'vintage_spoonsnflowers' by snork

24) Daisy Spoon by Jenimp

25) Dandylion-ed by Jane Crowe

26) Jiah_spoonflower_entry by Jiah

27) SpoonFlower by karidesign

28) i dig flowers by spoonflower4kelli

29) justspoony by Kelli Perkins

30) Spoons and Flowers Westie Chef by Kim Niles

31) Roses and Spoonflowers by Kathy Howard

32) my-grandmother_s-spoon by katy keuter

33) Pickin' Spoonflowers by kkitwana

34) grow_where_you_grow_best by kate_ryskamp

35) spoonflower by Maryalina

36) SpoonFlower Apron by monkeybutt

37) Spoon_Power by Lindsay Nightingale

38) Green Tea by Linda Graham

39) antiquespoonflower by Leslie Pepper

40) blooming spoons by LucindaNewtonDunn

41) Crazy_Spoon_Flowers by Sandra Stewart

42) spoonflowerfun by windflower

43) spoonflower-04 by Mendi Bradley

44) Spoonflower3 by Meredith McDaris

45) lovinspoonful by Michelle Freedman

46) 'Dish and Spoon' by cateanevski

47) Golden Spoon by Nancy Malay

48) Spoons and Flowers, Flowers and Spoons by Pam LaReaux

49) spoon by Ky Deslatte

50) flower_power_spoon_repeat-ch by Susan Philpott

51) Catching Flowers by Cathy Fronczak

52) Thirteenth time's the charm...by Kristi White

53) flowers and spoons by April Marie Mai

54) spoons-made-from-flowers by royalforest

55) spf318 by Ruth Marler

56) Bug Garden by Sebastian Cruz

57) Chocolate Spoon Flowers by Shala Kerrigan

58) light blue spoons by Robin Devereux

59) spoonflower by shout4joy2thelord

60) PIC_0007 by pumpkincatzak

61) My_Soonflower by Alex Morgan

62) curtains colored by staceyjoy elkin

63) Spoondylions by periwinklepaisley

64) 'spoons_and_flowers' by susalabim

65) doodle_M_001-ch by Tracy Denney

66) spoonflower bud by Linda Tieu

67) Flower-spoon-tea by Timothy Rayner

68) spoonflower_1jpg by vo

69) 'Blooming Spoons' by uptown_girl

70) HarvestSpoon by Kathleen Fajardo