For a short time I tried to convince myself that I was a fabric designer. While searching for a specific style of fabric, I couldn’t find anything I liked. My brilliant idea was to create my own.

Is there a difference between a fabric designer and a print designer? My answer would be yes. I’m convinced that a graphic designer can design fabric but it takes some extra knowledge and research. The process of designing fabric can be somewhat complicated and long.

Over the course of about three weeks I created several patterns with several different color options. I came across the website, SpoonFlower.com and decided to use them to print my fabric online. Before ordering my design in yards I ordered a swatch to see how it would look. It’s really nice that SpoonFlower offers the test swatch service. It’s very reasonable and only cost $5.00 to order a swatch.

When designing fabric you first have to realize that you’re printing on a different material. There are many types of fabric to choose from and what you choose can effect how the end product looks. My knowledge of different types of fabrics is very limited. I had no idea what type of fabric to choose for my project.

Since I do not know how to sew I also needed to find someone that could complete my project after designing my fabric. So, I contacted Heidi at Stitch Cleveland. She was a tremendous help in telling me what kind of fabric to use and how many yards I would need.

Color was a big concern for me. Since this was my first attempt at designing fabric, I had no idea how the color would turn out. My end result was that the color was much lighter than I intended it to be.

After much debate I decided that before I printed my fabric and had my project created I needed to learn more about the process. This is something I definitely want to do in the future but for now I needed to put a hold on my project. I’m looking forward to researching and learning more about fabric so that someday I will be a better fabric designer.