Why I Decided to Open a Spoonflower Shop

What made you decide to open a Spoonflower shop?

I’ve been printing fabrics with Spoonflower for years and years. It was time to open a shop for my textiles to truly THRIVE. I can’t wait to see how other makers and designers get creative with my patterns.

How has your journey with Spoonflower impacted your business over the years?

I found Spoonflower back in 2010 when I was first starting out designing textiles. It was the only company of its kind at the time, offering a service really only accessible to textile industry professionals and making it possible for ANYONE to easily upload their own artwork and print on fabric without crazy minimums. I was OVER THE MOON. Being able to see my drawings come to life as apparel and home decor was the most amazing experience and inspired so many more ideas for new projects and designs.

Tell us a little about your design process. Do you like to start out with hand drawn collage, drawing, painting or do you work entirely digitally?

I always start by hand. I haven’t made the switch over to the tablet world, so my process is still very analog in that respect, which I like! I want my work to have my hand in it. I might draw, paint or use cut-up paper to create shapes in the first stages. I then scan the artwork into the computer and play with things digitally using Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe® Illustrator®.

How do you hope/envision makers will use your fabric?

I really cannot wait to see what others make with my patterns. When I launched my business, my hope was that my drawings would become backdrops for people’s spaces, offering a little bit of joy and artful inspiration to their everyday life. For my patterns to be available in an array of textiles is really exciting to me.

What’s your design aesthetic and what inspires your work?

The patterns in my shop or sort of a “Greatest Hits” collection in a way! Some of the designs date back to when I first started out. I don’t know if I have one single design aesthetic? I think overall you will see that my work is lively, colorful and sort of playfully sophisticated.

The things that inspire me are vast. Art history, nature, architecture—even just a color combination I set my eyes on can send me on a mission to create a pattern based around it. Pattern design is like creating a puzzle from scratch. It’s the process of taking all the shapes and colors I’ve made, then turning them into a puzzle that has had me hooked for so many years.