Another way to create your own fabric design is to use your scanner.

Collect a number of flat items together and arrange them to your satisfaction.  Place them upside-down on your scanner and scan them.  Here I used a selection of flowers and leaves.  You could use feathers, doilies, lace, paper dolls (get your children to draw or colour them and make a cushion or apron for Grandma) cut-out shapes, confetti.

You can’t make this into a seamless repeat, so you could leave it as a ‘picture’ surrounded by a pretty background colour.  Or try mirroring your design.  You can get some beautiful, unexpected results that way.

You can mirror your design in your design software, or use the web site.  You do need to check what your design looks like mirrored, because sometimes the unexpected results aren't quite so pretty; they may need a bit of tweaking.  You can do this in your software, or by moving things on the scanner and re-scnning.

You may also be interested in our other design tutorials, including a general introducion to designing, how to design using photos and designing by hand.