After trying desperately to stick to my resolution of a completely hand-made Christmas as far as gift-giving is concerned, I found I had to waiver on a couple points. I can’t, for example, make an aebleskiver pan by hand! But this fabric, I think, still fits the hand-made category, at a stretch! This was kind of an exciting adventure, and I’m pretty pleased with its conclusion – let me show you what I’m talking about!
I have a niece who likes to sew, and she makes all kinds of things: aprons, totes, wallets, clothes for her baby sister… For her Christmas present, I decided to have some fabric printed for her from a doodled design.
I doodle a lot, but I don’t usually scan or photograph the things I doodle! However, since I had a few scans in my photo folder, I thought I’d see what they would look like as fabric. I chose this design:
Then I went to Spoonflower, where you can have custom fabric printed on demand. You can choose the layout repeat of your design, so I chose a mirrored image, and ordered a yard of fabric. It’s a bit pricey for a yard – $18 – but since it’s a Christmas present, since it’s custom-made, and since it’s my design, I really think my niece will enjoy receiving this! So I plunged, and ordered.
I received the yard of fabric today. It’s printed on a nice weight cotton, about a typical quilter’s weight. The design came out pretty well! I am really pleased with it! In the future, if I ever venture forth into this type of purchase, I’ll make sure I touch up the design and the photo so that the lines where the patterns join are not so visible. Still, I like how it came out!
Here’s the mirrored image a bit closer. The fabric is draped over my embroidery stuff on the couch – hence, the bulging here and there.
I’m really hoping my niece likes this gift! I’m pretty sure she will, and I hope she makes a few interesting “somethings” out of it. Well, it’s only a yard… but perhaps a small tote, or some little wristlets, or something….
If you’re looking for a unique gift, you might have something of yours printed into fabric. I was thinking it would be kind of fun to touch up a photo of an embroidered motif – extracting the embroidery from the rest of the image (in Photoshop or another graphics program), and then see how that would look repeated on fabric. It could be interesting! If nothing else, it’s kind of fun to play around on Spoonflower to see what types of designs you can come up with from your own photo or graphics collection!
I have one more major Christmas present to finish, by the way. I’m making the tote bag from the Breath of Spring embroidery project I finished last summer, and giving that to my mom. I want to sew that up this afternoon. Considering it will be the first tote bag I’ve ever made, I’ll need all the luck I can get!
I hope you enjoy your Friday!
This is lovely! I had heard of spoonflower, but not seen any actual results from it. Your doodles remind me a lot of a crazy quilt (I know, I know your feelings about crazy quilts hehe).
How interesting!
Your doodle looked to me like a design for a “cheater” crazy quilt…but when it was mirrored it took on a whole new character.
This would be so fun to color with Tsukineko inks…..hope she has a blast with it and I know she will really appreciate it, too.
This is too cool! I really like the way the fabric turned out. I am definitely going to check out Spoonflower. Thanks for the link.
Mary, there is a crazy quilter hidden deep inside!! Just look at your “doodlings”! Now, just do that on fabric. You know you want to. lol
You did the doodle, it is handmade. 🙂 At the least it is an ‘original design’.
Wow…this is incredible! Your niece will love it.
What a gorgeous doodle
I don’t know your feelings about CQ; but, I would agree, these doodles look like a cheater CQ to me! I believe I saw some bl/white fabric recently in an ad that could be colored and then embroidered. You might be onto something here!
I am sure your niece will love this fabric–probably won’t want to cut it.
A co-worker showed an article about spoonflower.com just the other day. I’m thinking about signing up myself and ordering some fabric.
I like your design! Have fun with it.
I had been doing doodles for years. I never thought of making fabric out of my doodles. How great Yours looks. wow
i like the third!
April