My First Fabric Collection: Prepping My Collection for Spoonflower
This is the fifth post in the series My First Fabric Collection. Get started with post number one: Why Immersion in 2024?
Spoonflower was on my radar even before I started the Immersion course as a potential location to post my fabric collection. I first learned about Spoonflower while completing Bonnie’s free mini-course in 2022. After I made my carabiner pattern, I decided to get some quarter yard samples printed from Spoonflower. Having that physical product in my hands was such an immense feeling I can hardly put it into words. Spoonflower also seemed like the most practical next step for where I am at in my fabric designing journey:
I feel very much like a beginner.
My time for art is limited.
I love the idea of being able to pitch my work to licensing companies one day, but I also know that I need more than one collection to feel confident taking that next step. I have learned a lot, but my ability to use Illustrator and execute my ideas is not second nature yet. Bonnie suggests that a newer designer should work on creating three collections that you are proud of and to use those collections to build out your portfolio. I also do not feel like I have the time to add pitching to companies to my to do list at this time, on top of continuing to learn, paint, blog, draw, etc. So I know that Spoonflower is the best next step for this season in my life. I want to develop at least two more collections and further solidify my skills. Publishing them on Spoonflower for other people to buy is a great way to see what kind of patterns the market is interested in. And let’s be real, making a little bit of cash on the side wouldn’t be terrible!
Spoonflower
So, before we get ahead of ourselves. What is Spoonflower? Spoonflower is a print on demand company. That means that they digitally print their fabric on large scale printers and they print it custom for each individual customer’s order on whatever kind of substrate, or base material, you want. They are not a design company. Instead they are an online marketplace where designers can upload their own designs, either to print for themselves (like my original carabiner fabric), or to sell to the public (what I hoped to do with my first collection). Spoonflower is well known for fabric, but they also offer wallpaper and home decor items.
Print on demand fabric is not what I have traditionally used. I learned how to quilt as a kid and my experience with fabric shopping is to walk into a fabric store, browse the shelves of bolts of fabric, and then have an employee cut me what I need. I am primarily a quilter, so I tend to visit fabric shops that are specifically selling quilting fabric. A different store will sell fabric you might use to sew clothing. An upholstery store will sell upholstery fabric. Spoonflower is a one stop shop, which can be really convenient as a maker and since Spoonflower fabric is printed, it is easy to customize what you want. Most patterns are always available, where a quilt store’s selection will change from season to season. Spoonflower is one of the more well-known print on demand companies and one that I already had a bit of experience with, so I decided that my next step would be to get my collection ready for Spoonflower.
Swatch Samples
My first step was to order a set of their swatch samples and a fabric copy of their color map. The set of swatch samples included a small rectangle of each of their fabrics and wallpapers with the same pattern printed on this. This allowed me to see what different fabric samples were available and how the colors might vary from fabric to fabric since it is digitally printed rather than woven like more traditional quilting fabric. It was fun to see the different options and to think about what my patterns could look like on quilting fabric, on lycra to create a bike jersey, or canvas to make a bag. I had a feeling that my patterns would probably print ok in their original colors, but I knew that using Spoonflower’s color map would ensure that things printed the way I wanted them to. The color map includes 1500 tiny rectangles of all of the colors that Spoonflower’s printers can print along with their specific hexadecimal codes for printing in RGB. My original designs were designed in CMYK, so this chart was helpful for converting my file into RGB colors, to make sure that the color I used in Illustrator would actually print the way I expected it to.
Recoloring and Samples
With both of these tools in hand, I began the tedious process of recoloring all of my patterns. The first step was to find the closest equivalent to my original color palette. The new palette ended up being very different, but I think I might like it more. Blue, purple, teal, and gold are still the dominant colors, but I think the new color palette is much brighter. With my new palette, I recolored all of the patterns in my original collection. I also played with a couple of alternate color combinations within the same color palette as well as alternate scales just to see how they would compare when I printed samples. While my original collection only included nine patterns, there were some from my course homework that I really loved, so I decided to add and recolor a couple additional patterns as well as create some standalone motifs that I thought could be fun to print.
Wheel wonder fabric print in old colorway.
Wheel wonder fabric print in new Spoonflower colorway.
Since Spoonflower is a print on demand company it is really easy to order samples. They also have a fill a yard program, where you could print up 48 designs on a single yard of fabric. Using this tool I got a yard printed with fifteen different patterns printed all together as well as a few 8x8 inch samples of some individual motifs on different types of fabrics. Just to compare, I also printed some patterns in my original color palette from my course and my new Spoonflower color palette, just to see how close what I am seeing on my screen is to what would get printed. Getting samples was so fun. I loved the colors and I loved the different scale options. It printed just how I expected it to, which meant that it was time to set up shop.
Getting my designs ready for sale meant that each design needed its own tile, description, and tags so that somebody would be able to find my designs among the tens of thousands of patterns that are available on Spoonflower. I also needed to finalize my shop, which included my name, jgagnondesigns, a photo of myself (cringe), bio, and a header image. It is a little daunting to imagine how somebody is going to find my designs in the crowd, especially when I feel like they are not the typical kinds of patterns you might see (So. Many. Flowers.)
Marionette Dress by Wellspring Designs.
Instead of getting stuck in the overwhelm and potential disappointment, I’m reminding myself that I am in this for the long game. Have I had very many sales yet, no, but I’m only starting to market the collection in places such as Pinterest, Instagram, and on my website through blogs like this one. I am also excited to try and make some things with my own fabric, though I’m not sure what yet. I love this quilted dress design by Casey of Wellspring Designs. I have also recently discovered Contrado, which is a different print on demand company that will also do custom clothing of your designs, whether it is a fabric pattern or even something like a painting. I’m not really interested in learning how to sew clothes myself, but it could be really fun to have a company like Contrado print and make a t-shirt I could use on my bike. Can you imagine that wheel print as a sports shirt? Needless to say, while the collection may be finalized, there are still new and interesting ways that I am considering using it.
Final Thoughts and What’s Next
Was the whole Immersion experience worth it? One hundred percent. I’m not sure that there is another program that could have taught me how to use Adobe Illustrator and then use that new-found skill to develop a fabric collection using my own art. It was a significant investment in my time and my money, but I needed the experience beyond just developing a fabric collection. There were over 3000 people in that course with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. There were also over 1000 alumni included in that total, which I think speaks to the ongoing value of the course. The fact that the course is offered a steep discount to alumni also helps. I needed to be put in a room, or rather an online community, with all of those people. There were some that I was actually ahead of, having already used Illustrator and already having a regular art practice. There were also people who were light years ahead of me. I think one of the best aspects of the course are the alumni who are brought on to help with the course. Hearing from their experiences during things like live Q&A sessions was really inspiring and made me think “hey, I could do that.”
I’m happy that my collection is done and available and I’m ready to move onto the next one. That is my next goal on my surface pattern fabric designer journey. I want to pick a new theme and work my way through the course again from start to finish, hopefully with less of a time crunch. I’m looking forward to viewing the lessons and starting again with my first collection experience under my belt.
Introducing: TREAD
My first fabric collection: Tread is available now on Spoonflower. One FREE way that you can support me is by favoriting those patterns that you like.
TREAD is a collection that celebrates the roads we travel and the marks we leave behind. This collection is inspired by historic automobiles, vintage fashion, and art deco designs.