When challenged with the task of picking out designs from the Spoonflower Marketplace for her newly launched quilt pattern Freshly Squeezed, Lorna Slessor of Cloth & Crescent Quilts got right down to business thanks to her tried-and-true tricks for searching a growing marketplace of designs. Looking at the designs featured in her quilt, we think it’s safe to say she nailed it! Keep reading to find out Lorna’s five tricks for picking out just the right collection of designs for your next quilt—or any project.
Lorna: If there’s one thing we’re not short of in 2020, it’s choice. Searching for a design of dogs in Halloween costumes? Look no further. Want some fabric with avocados doing yoga? How very 21st century of you (also, yep, it exists). But occasionally, just occasionally, all this choice can be a little daunting.
Fear not, though, fellow sewist. I’ve been looking out for you and your occasional indecision and have compiled a list of the easiest ways to search the Spoonflower Marketplace to find all the designs you never knew existed. It’s a breeze, trust me!
If someone else has already done the hard work for you, make the most of it! The team at Spoonflower knows their market inside out, and they put together a beautiful magazine showing off gems of fabric designs several times a year. Flick through the pages for project inspiration and the latest in fresh prints—it’s a great way to grasp design scale too.
Not only are these a perfect way to see some of the latest trends and seasonal must-haves in the fabric world, design challenges are a brilliant and easy way to discover new surface designers. You’re sure to find something you can’t live without when browsing the winners and runners-up of recent challenges—they’ve been voted champions by the Spoonflower community for a reason! Why not join in the fun and vote for an active challenge while you’re at it?
Curated Collections
From paper cutouts to mid-century modern, advanced geometry to abstract painterly, there are tons of collections curated by designers, shoppers and the team at Spoonflower that are sure to satisfy any work-in-progress you wish to tackle. Just search for any theme you like under Collections, and you’ll find yourself with a pretty full basket before long. (There are even quilting assemblages, hurrah!).
You could while away the hours scrolling through pages and pages of every kind of pattern, or you could shortlist your options by hovering over Fabric in the navigation and diving into categories like Top & Trending, Occasion, or Color. Believe it or not, you can whittle down pretty far in your search (we’re talking specific breeds of dogs).
Down to the Details
If you’ve got a specific theme in mind (perhaps those yoga-loving avocados I mentioned earlier), then go ahead and search it up. Instagram isn’t the only thing that benefits from a few filters though—sort your search results at the top by New, Fresh Picks and Best Selling to make sure that you’re scrolling through the freshest avocados around.
Armed with these tips and tricks, the only problem you may encounter when searching the Spoonflower Marketplace now is having TOO much fabric in your shopping cart…and, personally, I can think of worse troubles to have.
About the Author
Lorna Slessor is the brain/pair of hands behind Cloth & Crescent Quilts. By day she works as the Operations Editor for Love Patchwork & Quilting magazine, by night she can be found in front of her sewing machine with a scary movie on in the background. Inspired by landscapes, film and illustration, Lorna loves making graphic quilts with a playful twist. Find more of Lorna’s work over on her Instagram @clothandcrescent.
Thanks for the tips, but I find narrowing down searches in Spoonflower very frustrating. If I put in the search terms yoga and avocados, I only want to see avocados doing yoga. However, when I do that exact search I have to scroll through pages of avocado green fabric and fabric with people doing yoga until I stumble on the avocados doing yoga. Spoonflower should have filters like clothing websites do. If I select square neckline and short sleeves, my search results will only include dresses with both those attributes. I hope that Spoonflower is working on something like that.
Hi Barb,
Thanks so much for sharing your feedback regarding the search functionality. We are excited to share that our engineering team has been working hard to improve Spoonflower’s on-site search and you can now search by “Most Relevant” after you submit a search term on the left hand side of your screen. For example, after adding avocado and yoga, select “Most Relevant” to see avocados doing yoga! I hope that helps, but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask!
The real problem is trying to find a design you see on Etsy and want to purchase material like it. Just frustrating.
Also the search engine you are using is poor. There are way too many choices in the search results that do not match the filter. Talk to tech department plz.
Then I purchase material. It arrives and find an ink damage in the design. This delays what I am trying to make for a customer.
Maybe you need to scale back, re-evaluation the quality of your service and product.
Just a thought. I’m thankful for your business but it seems it’s getting overwhelming for those who are running it.
Hi Joyce,
Thanks so much for reaching out and we’re sorry to hear our site has given you trouble in the past. We are so excited to share the exciting news that our engineering team has been working hard to improve Spoonflower’s search functionality and just a few weeks ago we unveiled a new search on our site. You can now search by Most Relevant, which is a great way to narrow down your search results. We hope you’ll give the new search tools a try!
Great way for pattern designers to know what customers are searching too. Helpful article. Thanks!