Have you been flexing your design muscles?  Do they ache yet?  If not, you might like to try a repeating pattern.

There is a very good tutorial on Design Sponge, showing how to create a repeating pattern by hand. 

The official Photoshop tutorial on using repeats is here.  However, it's not the easiest document to follow; you may prefer a video tutorial on Youtube.  There are lots to choose from, but I thought this one by Evan Eckard was fairly easy to follow.

Or you could stick to a simple vertical or horizontal design, which repeats easily. 

If you're enjoying your forays into designing, you may like to go on a course.  Chelsea College of Art have 1-day and 1-week courses which look interesting.  If you can't reach London, you can probably find similar courses at your local art college. 

If you haven't started designing yet, what are you waiting for?  You can find a round-up of our first design-related blog posts on the post Designing Your Own Fabric - a Round-up.  (You'd never have guessed that, would you?!)

If you're quick, you still have time to enter our design competition, but even if you don't do that, keep designing!

Bird design by  Jessica Swift.