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An interview with Patty Sloniger, our favorite bugs-in-a-jar fabric designer

Those of you who have been with Spoonflower awhile will likely Patty Sloniger, fabric designer for Michael Miller Fabricsremember our Project Selvage contest from early this year, and Patty Sloniger as the winner.  Stephen had the pleasure of meeting Patty and her husband in person at Quilt Market a couple of weeks ago and posted a few photos of her booth in his Quilt Market report, but we wanted to talk to Patty more about her two new fabric collections being released with Michael Miller in January. Read on for more on Patty's fabric debut at Quilt Market plus a BIG giveaway of her lovely fabrics!

Patty's fabrics stackedJust a couple of weeks ago, you debuted your new “Backyard Baby” and “Bella Butterfly” collections at Quilt Market in Houston.  I know that you actually live in Houston, so was that your first time attending Quilt Market?  What were your overall first impressions as a debuting fabric designer?

It was my first time to attend Quilt Market, and the Festival side, too, on the following weekend. I had no idea what I’d been missing all these years of living close by! My first impression was just, wow…. I had expected to see some really amazing fabrics, but I was totally blown away by some of the booths themselves. The creative ways that designers and manufacturers alike put together their spaces, and the quality and detail in the quilts and sewn samples I saw was both humbling and motivational.

How would you describe your experience becoming a professional textile designer to what you imagined before winning Project Selvage?

Haha, I read “professional fabric designer” and still have to remind myself that my fabrics are going to be on shelves in stores! The production process is definitely a long one, with long periods of time in between contact and not a lot of tangible reminders that something amazing is actually going on behind the scenes. It’s easy to forget for months at a time that you have this exciting project going on.

Now that you’re a licensed designer with MIchael Miller, what role do you think Spoonflower will play in your fabric designing life?

I'm probably not going to have as much time to spend on Spoonflower as I’d like but I plan to continue spending most of my free time here. There are tons of ideas in my head that still have not made it onto fabric yet and I plan to use Spoonflower for as many of them as possible! I’d love to upholster something for my house, and make anything out of the new cotton-silk, not to mention getting back into the swing of weekly contests.

BackyardBaby_LRI find your “Backyard Baby” designs so appealing, especially the “Bug Jars” prints that remind me of how I spent a lot of my time growing up.  Can you talk a little about the specific inspirations behind both your new collections?  

I actually heard that a lot at Market, and I love that so many people can relate! The inspiration for "Backyard Baby" was all about playing outdoors and the wonders of nature that you can find in your own backyard. My most cherished memories of growing up aren’t of watching tv or playing video games, but things like climbing trees, staying outside until it was too dark to play hide-and-seek anymore, and catching fireflies. My inspiration for the girl’s collection, “Bella Butterfly”, was a bit more decorative. I wanted to take what are traditionally more formal patterns like damask, paisley and houndstooth, and reinterpret them in a sweet, chic way for baby.

How did you get into designing fabrics? Are there any other designers whose work inspires you?

Spoonflower is totally to blame for my fabric design career. From my first attempts at uploading art I’d already made and trying to force it into repeat, to actually creating art elements specifically for a design, I learned it all right here. I’m inspired by so many other designers and have to look no further than SF to find the vast majority of them.

BackyardBabyPillowStool_LR
I know that you like to sew so would you say that you try to design fabrics that you’d like to sew with personally, or does that not really come into play for you?

I think that once the sewing bug bit me, I definitely started designing fabrics with the end result in mind, sometimes with a specific sewing pattern already picked out. I’ve found that sewing with your fabrics is a great learning tool. You get to see firsthand which aspects of a design do or don’t work, especially in a collection. Sometimes you’ll find it’s not necessarily something that’s wrong, but maybe something that’s missing.

Do you have any other fabric collections in the works at the moment?  

I am working on new fabric designs for Michael Miller, but am not sure if they’ll be for the upcoming Spring Market or for next Fall Market in Houston.

Thanks, Patty!  And now for that giveaway I mentioned. Patty has graciously shipped us all the prints from "Backyard Baby" and you can win a fat quarter of each, plus a hand-picked selection of six fat quarters of some of Patty's designs available through Spoonflower. Just comment on this post to be added to the drawing for this big stack of loveliness.  Entries will close on Tuesday, 11/15 at 7:00 pm EST, and we'll announce a winner at noon EST Wednesday, 11/16.  Good luck!  GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED FOR ENTRIES.  STAY TUNED FOR ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNER TOMORROW AT NOON EST!

By the way, the winners of last week's giveaway of The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook & Sewing in a Straight Line were: Carole Henshall of Vancouver, BC (CheeseandChutney on Spoonflower) and Fabio Prado of New York, NY (Umbelas on Spoonflower).

Reader Interactions

Related Posts

A Fabric Star Is Born: Announcing the Project Selvage Winner
Are you ready to choose the winning collection for Project Selvage? Voting opens!
Project Selvage Finalist Profile: Patty Sloniger
Project Selvage Finalist Profile: Drea Roman

Comments

  10. Congratulations again, Patty! I am so thrilled to hear Michael Miller is keeping you on for more work, but am not at all surprised, you are a very talented illustrator and designer! Cannot wait till they go on sale in January!

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  22. Congratulations again to Patty! I am so glad to see a talented designer get her day in the sunshine – a well deserved win – ‘Windy Day’ is still one of my all-time favorites! Hooray for Spoonflower for helping her discover and refine her talent!

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  30. The backyard baby collection is fabulous like all Patty’s designs. Are Michael Miller fabrics available outside the US e.g. in Australia? Hope the collections are available over here.

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  31. I met Patty at Quilt Market which was very exciting because I watched the Project Selvedge contest take place. I love all of the designs on Spoonflower, there are so many talented people out there. Congrats to Patty on becoming a “professional fabric designer”! Backyard Baby is adorable, I can’t get enough of those bugs in a jar.

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  44. Eek! I couldn’t be more happier for you, Patty! Your fabrics turned out amazing and I cannot wait to see what your future holds! Thank you so much for the giveaway!

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  47. Congrats Patty on the launch! Beautiful work. And thanks Spoonflower for doing the interview. Just the kind of questions I was wondering about myself. We can only hope that another contest like this will come our way again.
    And hooray for the generous give-away!

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  56. How incredible, inspiring and exciting to read. What a talented designer Patty Sloniger is!! I love that she learnt it all here too. And what a beautiful quilt those fabrics would make! Thank you for sharing your story, Patty 🙂

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  57. Very inspirational! I love that she was able to tell her story so well in a short article.
    I have just started thinking about my project before the actual fabric design, too, which is also a switch for me.
    Congrats, Patty! What an accomplishment. Your fabrics are darling and very well designed.

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  58. LOVE THOSE FABRICS. i have several baby quilts to make for future great and great-great nieces and maybe nephews. these would be perfect for them. i love the look of them paired up with white.

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  68. I love her fabrics! Of course, with a 4-month old baby boy in the house, it’s much harder to find time to sew… But the fabric would eventually find its way into decor for his room 🙂
    Also, I think there should be a contest for cut-and-sew cloth baby books!

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  79. I feel so in love with this fabric at quilt market. Thanks so much to “Spoonflower” for allowing this very talented lady to share her designs. Can’t wait to design my own quilt pattern to use with this fabric.

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  83. I love your designs and Michael Miller prints too! What an exciting time for you Patty. Congrats! Oh, and PS: I’d be in sewing heaven if I were the lucky person to win this luscious “stack of loveliness” to use in sewing my toddler clothing!

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  85. I’m a big fan of Patty’s designs. It sounds like Quilt Market was fun! I’m excited to see what new designs are in the works. It will certainly be a happy mail day for the lucky winner of the “Backyard Baby” fat quarter pack!!

    Reply

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