How It All Began
About five or six years ago I happened to read a short article in Martha Stewart Living magazine about a new company called Spoonflower, specializing in the printing of designs of independent artists onto fabric. I thought this sounded too good to be true! For years I wondered how to get my watercolors printed onto fabric or wallpaper. (They didn’t teach useful things like this at art school). Normally, you would have to license your work to a design company, and they would make all the decisions from there.
What Do They Do??
I later learned that Spoonflower is a print-on-demand fabric and wallpaper company located in Durham, North Carolina, that allows independent designers to sell their designs through the Spoonflower platform. They have millions of designs to choose from and can print them on a wide range of fabric substrates. Anyone can purchase fabric or wallpaper by the yard, or order ready-made products ranging from curtains to bed sheets, all printed with the design of their choice, created by themselves or by someone else.
After reading this article I was excited to check out the Spoonflower website and see if what I had read was indeed true and useful to me. I was happy to find that it was!… and that they took orders as small as a single yard, and did indeed print whatever digital imagery you uploaded to their site. This opened a whole new world to me! I couldn’t wait to try this.
How I Put This New Tool to Use
I started by ordering a swatch booklet with samples of their fabrics and wallpapers. Not long after that, I watched one of their instructional videos on how to create a personalized tea towel using images of handwritten recipes printed on their 54 inch linen/cotton canvas. This tutorial helped me decide that tea towels would be a good way to present my art on cloth. I realized they could also be used as a wall-hanging or a table runner. I have even stretched them over a frame to hang as a canvas print.
Figuring It All Out
With a bit of trial and error, I figured out how to upload my designs at the correct size, depending on the fabric width, and ordered a single yard onto which I could fit four towels. I was really happy with the weight and quality of the linen/cotton canvas, and so, it is still my fabric of choice.
My process of making a tea towel are as follows; after receiving the yardage in the mail I put it through the wash, remove it from the washer and iron it while still damp. Next, I cut the four towels apart with the right amount of border, and then fold over and iron the edges in place. They’re then ready to hem on the sewing machine, and give a final pressing. Each towel takes me about 45 minutes from start to finish.
So Many Ideas, So Little Time
Over these past five or six years I would guess that I’ve sewn well over a couple hundred towels, and have printed over 30 different designs. Some have proven to be more popular than others, so I stick with the best-sellers. I would love to print many more but the fabric is relatively expensive, and the towels are time consuming to make. I have to limit myself, but my collection of designs is continuously growing as I’m always painting new things.
A New Item
Once I got a good grasp on how to create the design layout in order for it to print correctly, I expanded into making sixteen inch square throw pillows. These are a bit more time consuming to make, so I keep the number of available designs pretty low.
It Never Gets Old
No matter how long I’ve been doing this, it’s always exciting to see my new watercolors printed onto fabric. Because the original paintings are usually quite small, it’s neat to see them take on a new dimension when printed at a larger scale.
As it goes with my painting…there are so many things I could create using my designs on fabric, but there just isn’t enough time to do everything. I’ve had such a positive response to my towels that it inspires me to keep on sewing, and to see where things lead next.
Thank you Spoonflower for offering a great service, and excellent print and color quality that allowed me to take my art in a new direction!!
