If you know what you’re doing with fabric design, you can start designing now!  We will soon be able to  can now print your designs onto fabric.

If you’re a professional designer, or experienced amateur, you might want to look away now  -  unless you’d like to write some instructions for us!   If you’ve never done any designing and would like to have a go, I’ll try to point you in the right direction.

I’m not a designer, so I apologise now if I mislead you or send you in a round-about way.

Professional textile designers frequently use design software, such as Photoshop or Illustrator.  These are expensive to buy if you just want to dabble, but there are a number of free or cheaper alternatives which are good for trying your hand.  These include:

Paint.NET  –  free image and photo editing software.  Superior version of Microsoft Paint

Inkscape.org  -    an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator

Wintopo.com  -  converts files (e.g. Jpg, TIFF) and scanned images into vector files.  Freeware version available

ArtRage.com  -  painting software.  Produces natural-looking artwork, on iPad and iPhone as well as computer.  Inexpensive

They are fun to play with!

If you would like a brief guide to these resources, click on the button below.  (We need your details so that we can send it.)

You can design your own fabric patterns however you like – by hand, on the computer, with a photograph – whichever way best suits you and the design you’re working on. 

Our printer software accepts files in three formats, jpeg, eps  and TIFF.   As long as it ends up in one of these file formats, you can use any creative method you like to work with.  It also needs to be flattened if you've used layers and should be a reasonably high resolution image.  150dpi is the minimum our printer will accept, but it's also the maximum you need.  Using a higher resolution doesn't produce a better print on fabric.

It’s probably simplest, to start with, to avoid an all-over design.  Working out how the repeat works is not for the faint-hearted, or the beginner – remember that you can study design for years at university.   A geometric design or one with a simple repeat is easier to work on to start with.

If this all sounds a bit too complicated, panic not.  There will be further posts in due course. [Some of the ones now available are: Design your own fabric using photos, Design your own fabric using your computer and Design your own fabric by hand.]  

Flourish image is from Inkthisscape on YouTube.   Daisy image from Gisela Gold Online.

To be continued….