Curious about how to get started in surface design? In this step-by-step beginner tutorial, Spoonflower artist Anda Corrie walks you through how to create your first seamless repeat using the app Procreate®, an iPad and an iPad-compatible stylus pen. With loads of photos, easy-to-understand steps and insider knowhow, Anda shares how you can turn any design into a seamless repeat.
Anda: Ever since I discovered the drawing app Procreate, I have been designing my fabric almost entirely digitally. In fact, I have been designing fabric mostly from my couch, and can have it completely uploaded to Spoonflower and in the mail without getting up at all, ever (except to refill my coffee).
But, like almost everyone creating fabric on their iPads while sitting on their sofas, at first I struggled to create repeating patterns without errors. When I started using Procreate, the app had no easy tool for offsetting a design like I was used to. For an embarrassingly long time I was using a very precise method I like to call “eyeballing it”—and as you can probably guess, all my swatches were plagued with pixel lines and I was wasting a ton of time… and proofs.
Currently, Procreate still doesn’t have an offset feature. However, it now includes a tool called Snapping, which makes the process a lot easier to manage. The method below will walk you through the steps to create seamless repeating designs, while cozily ensconced in a throw blanket and listening to your favorite podcast. Have fun!
Steps to Create Your First Procreate Seamless Repeat
1. Create a new canvas.
I almost always work in an 8” x 8″ square at 300 dpi when designing patterns on an iPad. I like this size because 8” x 8″ is the size of a Spoonflower fabric swatch and at 300 dpi I have more options for adjusting the scale of my design.
2. Draw within the canvas.
To keep things simple, don’t let any of your work run off the sides—keep everything within the canvas borders. New to drawing or unsure what to add to your blank canvas? Your design can have patterns, abstract lines, shapes, whatever you want to try out. I changed the background to yellow, then drew these three tigers.
3. Create a new layer.
Click the + sign on the layer panel to create a new layer. Select a dark color in your color palette, then tap the new layer in the layers panel. Choose Fill Layer to fill the new layer completely with color (I used black).
4. Create a New Group.
With the color-filled layer selected, choose Opacity in the tools panel (or two-finger tap that layer) and drag the bar to the middle somewhere, around 50%. Then open the Layers panel again and swipe right to select each layer. Now tap Group to group them or select Combine Down. They will be combined into a group called New Group.
5. Create a second New Group.
Swipe left on this group and choose Duplicate. This will create a second New Group.
6. Use the Snapping tool.
With one of the groups selected in Layers, click Transform at the top left (arrow icon). Click Snapping at the bottom left. Turn Snapping ON, then enter 25 for Distance and 5 for Velocity. Tap and hold the selection on your screen and drag the entire selected image to the left until it is halfway off the canvas. You can tell it is halfway and properly snapping in place because orange guides will appear. Release the selection when you see the orange guides.
7. Drag your design to where you want it to go.
Select the second group in the Layers panel, click Transform again, and in the same way, drag the image to the right side of the screen. Look for the orange guides and release. It should snap right into place!
8. Check your work.
If you see a grey line in the center of your canvas, you haven’t moved the second layer far enough to the edge. You can select it again and tap the right side of the screen (off the canvas) to move the image one pixel at a time. Or— and this is what I do because I am impatient—you can click Undo and just move it again. Pinch zoom in and check that there are no lines at the top or the bottom of the canvas, where the background color is visible. If there are, you need to Undo and try it again.
9. Delete the Opacity layers and merge remaining layers.
Open the Layers panel and delete the two 50% opacity layers and merge the two remaining layers that make up your drawing.
10. Add additional elements to your designs.
Draw in the center of your canvas, but don’t draw off any of the edges of the canvas.
11. Repeat steps 4-9 with your new additional details.
After you’ve added more details, repeat steps 4-9, but this time drag the groups to the top or bottom of the canvas. As you draw more or move around elements of your artwork, always stay within the borders of your canvas. Important: don’t adjust or move any design elements that are now running off the edges.
12. Want more details? They can still be added!
You can repeat these steps over and over and over! In this case, I decided to add some little grass motifs to my image so I repeated steps 4-9 a third time.
13. Save your design.
Once you are happy with your design, go ahead and just upload it from your device! Click Share in the tool panel and select JPG. Save locally to your Images folder.
14. Recheck your work before uploading to Spoonflower.
At this point, I like to check my repeat to make sure it tiles the way I like and has no hidden mistakes. For this, you can use any app that lets you create a repeating pattern of images. I use Layout from Instagram. Open Layout, select your design and choose the 4- or 16-square repeats. Save it and head over to your Photo Library to look closely at the repeat and check for problems.
15. Upload your design to Spoonflower.
Looks good? Now you can open Spoonflower in your device’s browser and upload your image straight from your iPad! Choose Photo Library to grab it. Important: since this is a seamless repeat, you need to select Basic Repeat on the Edit Fabric page. Need a little more help? Check out the Designing & Uploading article in the Spoonflower Help Center.
All done! Here’s my finished design as a mock up on a children’s jumper.
To give you more of an idea of what designs using these steps look like, here are two additional designs I made on my iPad using this technique:
Drawing apps are a fun and inexpensive way to get super addicted to surface design. I love seeing others’ work on Instagram, so be sure to tag me @andacorrie if you design something using this technique!
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around how to create and upload a seamless pattern when the repeat isn’t square. One that I’m working on is rectangular, and is seamless, but it would not be seamless if I uploaded it as a 8×8 swatch for example. Am I thinking about this all wrong? I work exclusively in Procreate for now.
Hi Erin, here’s a newer tutorial using Procreate’s new pattern tool that may be more useful for you while navigating rectangular designs! https://www.instagram.com/tv/CKPM4tWjEBK/
I’m really struggling to line up my design properly. When I repeat my tile you can see it’s slightly off when you zoom in. When I’m moving my design in procreate I always makes sure the move lines are yellow, and I zoom in afterwards to make sure there’s no gaps, but once repeated you can see it doesn’t match up. I’m using procreate on my ipad air, could it be because of that?
Hi Felicity,
So sorry you’re experiencing this problem! We tried to recreate it on our end to help troubleshoot, but we weren’t able to. Are Procreate and your iPad Air operating system updated to the most recent versions? Sometimes bugs like this can happen if not. You can also check out the Procreate Help & Support Forums to see if anyone can answer your question.
Best,
Anna
Spoonflower
Thank you. When I first bookmarked this page I thought it looked too complicated for me, a 55 year old technical newbie. 6 months on I reopened it and I understand it. Old dog new tricks, helped by a great app and Spoonflower! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We’re so glad you are enjoying Procreate and found the tutorial helpful. Have fun!
-Amy
Spoonflower
These directions no longer seem accurate. In fact I can’t finish the process because of the changes. What other programs can do pattern repeats. I’m not impressed with the lack of training for this program.
Hi Chris,
Sorry for the confusion! We have recently posted another Procreate tutorial that you may find helpful here. I hope that helps, but please let us know if you have any further questions.
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Such a wonderful tutorial! Really helped to teach me how to create a seamless pattern.
It looks great in procreate, but when I uploaded the design to spoonflower you can see the splices in the pattern.
Any advice? Mahalo in advance
Hi Kui,
Thank you for the feedback! Whenever you’re moving elements in Procreate make sure that both snapping and magnetics are turned on to prevent accidentally nudging something a pixel or two too far. Make sure to zoom in around the edges and check that there aren’t any blank pixels where there shouldn’t be. You could also try testing your pattern tile in Procreate before exporting and uploading it to Spoonflower. Start by duplicating your final pattern a few times, transform it to make it smaller, and tile it to check that it’s repeating the way you want it to. Be sure to zoom in at the points where it’s meeting the other tiles and check that there are no pixel lines. Additionally, our preview screen can sometimes have a little bit of trouble displaying very intricate images. Try double-checking by viewing your design on All Products and look at the fabric section to see if that view looks correct.
I hope that helps, but please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Best,
Amy
Spoonfloewr
Hi thanks for the tutorial. Having created a tile image of a repeating pattern, how in Procreate do you actually fill a layer or selection area with the repeating pattern?
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your question. The easiest way to do this would be to export it and bring it into Illustrator to create a pattern fill. But to do it all in Procreate we would recommend first turning on guides—under the Wrench icon at the top, go to Canvas and turn on Drawing Guide. Then tap, Edit Drawing Guide right underneath. In the toolbar the pops up drag the slider for Grid Size all the way to the right so it’s on Max (the guides should divide your canvas into 4 sections) then tap Done. Next, in the layers panel duplicate your final tile layer and turn off any other layers. With your newly duplicated tile layer selected, scale it down using the Cursor icon in the top menu bar (in the bottom toolbar that pops up, make sure Snapping is on and Magnetics and Snapping are also on under the settings). Start dragging from one of the corners to make your tile smaller until it fits into one of the quadrants. With Snapping turned on your tile should snap to fit more easily as you get closer to your guides. Once it’s resized, tap the Cursor icon again to finalize the transformation. Then go back into your layers panel and duplicate the tile layer we just scaled-down and move it to one of the empty quadrants. Repeat this process of duplicating and moving the layers until all 4 quadrants have been filled. If you want, you can merge the visible layers at that point. If you want to keep scaling your pattern down even more, continue duplicating, scaling down and merging, until you get a better sense of how the pattern looks.
We hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Hi there great instructions by the way! I just have one question is a 64gb iPad Air enough to do this type of work or do I need an iPad Pro?
Hi Briar,
We recommend reviewing Procreate’s website to find more information regarding suitable iPads but in our research online we found that all iPads released after 2015 are compatible with the latest version of the Procreate app. The models that are NOT compatible with the latest version of Procreate include: iPad 1 to 4, iPad Mini 1 to 3, and iPad Air 1.
This is such a cool tutorial, but I’m having some trouble with a tiny border that always shows up in my tiles. I always have to finish it in PS because of that border, I send it to PS, crop the tile to get rid of the border and then it is ready to go, but it doesn’t matter how much I try, I always have that border (It’s not noticeable unless I zoom in a bunch, but it does show up as a hairline when I test the pattern in Pixelmator or PS). You can actually see it on Anda’s images in this tutorial, a tiny white border around the tile. I thought it was a “mirage” and it wouldn’t show on the saved image, but in my case it always does, creating a hairline on the repeat pattern. Any ideas?
Hi Carolina,
We’re glad to hear you enjoyed the tutorial! Procreate recently released an update that makes aligning tiles even easier! During step 7, click on the Snapping icon in the bottom menu (the one that pops up when you’re transforming the layer) and make sure that you have both Magnetics and Snapping turned on. This should help with snapping everything correctly and avoiding that pesky pixel line. I hope that helps, but let us know if you have any other questions.
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
I could not do the 7th step. How do we do it?
Hi Bashak,
We’re sorry to hear you had trouble with step 7. Are you able to provide more details about the issue you experienced so we can assist you further?
These instructions worked beautifully, and I\’m happy with my design. After I used Procreate, I exported the design to Photoshop Elements, in PSD format, and air dropped it to my MacBook Pro. (Photoshop Elements is a one-time purchase ($99), unlike the other Adobe products that require a subscription). From Elements I was able to make a big canvas and paste my design over and over to see how the squares fit together, and then tweaked the design to improve the composition. As with Procreate, it just takes a bit of patience to nudge pixel by pixel to make sure there\’s no overlap or gap.
Hi Anda, this is super cool… thanks
could you please provide the link to the video tut you found? I would like to watch it.
Hi Fredrik,
You can find Abbie’s tutorial here!
Which iPad do you have, I’m in the market.
Love the class
Thanks
I am going to try this seamless repeat when I get a chance this week hopefully I will let you know how I got on xx
Great tutorial! But until I can get a new iPad, is there a design site to use from my laptop? (without Illustrator or Photoshop)Thank you!
Hi Michelle,
We recommend taking a look at the free design program GIMP!
Dear Anda,
Thank you for this very helpful tutorial!
I thought that to upload to spoonflower one had to vectorize ones work first, with Adobe Illustrator for exemple.
Maybe i missed something…
Hi Ana,
As long as your file is saved as a JPG or PNG and under 40 mb, we can print it for you!
You are a lifesaver! thank you for creating and sharing this!
How do I save the pattern on spoonflower if I just want the pattern? This was a super helpful tutorial!
Hi Chloe,
We’re happy to hear you found this tutorial helpful! When you upload the design to Spoonflower when you’re logged into your Spoonflower account, it’ll automatically save as your specific repeat in your account. If you download the original file once you’ve uploaded to Spoonflower, it’ll be the same file that you uploaded to your account. I hope that helps, but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Absolutely brilliant!! Now I feel like *I CAN DO THIS*…
Vielen Dank!
Although I found this to be useful, I find the magnetic tool to not work much at all. Also, the dashed line around the selected layer makes it impossible to see if the two layers are overlapping or have a gap, when it is very thin. If I zoom in to see closer, I can’t access the top to nudge it. Thus, I have mixed feelings about the Procreate app and it’s usefulness for my design work.
Hi Anda,
Thanks a lot for sharing. It is already very helpfull. And I just tried it. Only there are white lines appearing. They are on the sides in procreate and if I make a jpg then the white lines are visible in the design.
Do you have a tip for that?
Thanks a lot.
Warm regards, marjolein
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Oh my god, thank you! I could cry.
I can not thank you enough!
I have tried,and it worked…..But I keep leaving a line?
every time I pick up apple Pencil… It moves a bit!
Do you or anyone have a tip” to stop the tip of apple pencil/or my finger from tipping the designs placement?
I have even tried/ moving in one swoop/to the circle,in blue guide line into that other dot…which seems”
Is where the Two Halfs should meet?
peace,
linda ann
(I have a learning problem, words are not my forte) This is why
i do stuff so upsidedown. Plus if you have a peek-my website is Wonky, I shall update it soon.
I can hand draw till tomorrow is gone! ..I have 30+ sketch books filled bact to front of my Free style creations.
Awesome, this is very useful!
I love this!! Thank you.
Thanks for the tutorial. I have been practicing , but sometimes the seems don’t align properly. But I will keep practicing. I love it. Thanks.
Same here… There is always a thin gray line between the two layers. I find it hard (impossible for now!) to stick the two layers side by side without overlay them… I guess we have to practice more! 🙂
Brilliant tutorial! Thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to put this into practice 🙂 x
Can this be used with detailed designs uploaded on the iPad and not drawn on the iPad with the Apple Pencil?
Hi Patricia,
While we haven’t given this technique a try, we think it might be something that could work!
Thanks for the tutorial! I am thinking about going digital! What kind of stylus do you have?
Hi Mary,
Anda is using the Apple Pencil!
I am ok up until step 8. “merge the two remaining layers”
How?
Open layer menu on right side and with two fingers pinch the layers together
Or it seems to work to merge the two patterns.
Me too!!! I need more guidance on that final step! HELP!
Thank you!!!
If I could, I’d kiss you ???? Thank you so much for this, and no need for another app. Brilliant.
This was such a helpful tutorial. I too have been eyeballing my designs done on Procreate, and now my designs should have a better flow. Thanks!
Hi, Susan– Just took a look at this and realized I already have the app! Now to make a drawing worth repeating!!! Nancy
This worked great for me! Thanks so much
I sooo appreciate you taking the time to produce this feature…I knowww how much time and work it takest to create!! And to share what you learned by building on (and giving credit to) other’s who helped you is huge.
Thank you for making my new Spoonflower experience even more enjoyable while creating!
Sincerely Grateful!!
Thank you so much Anda! This is very useful method. You resolved the mystery of creating repeats on iPad!!!
Hi Nelli,
We’re so glad you found Anda’s tutorial helpful! Designing from your couch has never been easier thanks to Procreate!
-Meredith from Spoonflower
Thanks for share Anda!
Thanks, Anda (and Spoonflower!) That’s a brilliant way to do a seamless repeat! Now I have to convince my hubby that we need a newer iPad… ;o)