Make: Spoonflower Fabric Design

I am learning Illustrator, because I want to design my own fabrics at Spoonflower.  I’ve wanted to do this since 2008 when Spoonflower opened it’s doors, but I was scared.  Creating a repeating pattern seemed hard and I don’t like to fail.  I finally decided to bite the bullet and teach myself how to do it.  I learned loads from online tutorials, but I really picked up speed after purchasing a book. 

Know what?  It isn’t nearly as hard as I thought.  Yes, it takes a lot of trial and error, but it’s doable.    My first design was a Japanese doll.  At the time, I was very proud of it.  But, I knew I could do better.

Here is the fabric after the printing process. 

For my second design, I decided to try a Spoonflower contest – Rain.  I wanted to push myself to learn more.  I really wanted a more complex repeating pattern.  While this design is not my favorite, I did learn how to seamlessly repeat a pattern.  Can you see the improvement?  I didn’t do too bad in the contest either (meaning I didn’t come in dead last!!!).  I placed #205 out of 451 participants.  I actually got 70 votes.  That is worth celebrating! 

I entered another contest this week, Black and White (No shades of grey).  My design is much more complex and much more “my style.”   Although, I don’t think I’ve honed in on “my style” yet.  I’m working on it.  For this design, I played with width of the black line and how close the lines were spaces to fool the eye into “seeing” shades of grey.    So far, this is my favorite design.  But I know I can do better!!!

Oh how I wished I used that building with the black room more than once…. Hindsight is 20/20…