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Book Month: V&A Pattern Collection
V&A Pattern Four-Volume Set
V & A Publishing, 2009 (distributed in the U.S. by Abrams)
This was a great year for pattern sourcebooks, and I don’t think it can get better than the new series from The Victoria & Albert Museum. The first series, available individually or as a box set, includes the Fifties, Indian Florals, Digital Pioneers, and William Morris. (The second series is available for pre-order
— it will include 19th century architect and designer Owen Jones, Novelty Patterns, Secret Gardens, and Kimonos.)
Each hardcover book contains around 70 gorgeous, iconic patterns and includes a short introduction to their historical significance. Readers of this site will likely be most interested in the Fifties, which includes patterns from the leading British and international artists designers of the time: Lucienne Day, Robert Stewart, Marion Mahler, Terence Conran, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Joan Miró, and many more.
Included with each book are CDs of high-resolution .jpg files. All images are free to use for personal projects, but note that they are not in repeat and would have to be edited or re-worked if you wanted to use them as tiled patterns. As they are, they will print up to approximately A5 paper size (8.25″ x 5.75″). The possibilities are nearly endless, and these books should hold a place of honor on any designer’s shelves.
Book Month: The Sewing Bible by Ruth Singer
The Sewing Bible: A Modern Manual of Practical and Decorative Sewing Techniques
Potter Craft, 2009
It used to be that if you asked for my recommendation on a good comprehensive sewing guide, I would say the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing
RDCGS is more comprehensive, especially in garment construction, but I think Ms. Singer did a wonderful job choosing techniques to cover — the result is comprehensive without being overwhelming. The 20 projects in The Sewing Bible are thoroughly fresh, modern, and inspired. I mean, I think the projects in the RDCGS are awesome, but I can see where others might disagree. I like the 20 “masterclasses” included in The Sewing Bible, which cover techniques like decorative box pleating, couture hems, invisible zippers, and reverse appliqué.
Of course, you can’t go wrong with having both books in your sewing book library!
Book Month: Expanding Your Fabric Horizons
Twinkle Sews: 25 Handmade Fashions from the Runway to Your Wardrobe
Potter Craft, 2009
Linen Wool Cotton: 25 Simple Projects to Sew with Natural Fabrics
Trumpeter/Shambhala, 2009
Like Susan Wasinger’s Fabricate, which Mary Beth reviewed last week, today’s books both are great for sewists wanting to explore different kinds of fabrics. Wenlan Chia, whose label Twinkle by Wenlan is well known in the knitting, fashion, and design world, has several knitting books under her belt, but Twinkle Sews is her first sewing book. It has 25 designs — seven skirts, six raglan sleeve tops, six drop shoulder tops, and six spaghetti strap tops/dresses. Of course the biggest factor in deciding whether you should buy this book is whether or not you like her designs and whether they will work with your body. Unfortunately I haven’t seen much in the way of previews of the projects anywhere on the web (Craftystylish shows a few), so this is one to seek out in your local bookstore to see in person.
The look of the garments definitely gets my seal of approval — they are far more fashion forward than the big commercial pattern companies’ fare, with lots of interesting lines and details. I’m excited that they use a wide variety of fabrics — wools, lace, silks, linen, and blends, sweatshirt fabric, synthetics, velvet, eyelet, and many blends. The patterns range in difficulty from easy to advanced, but the easy ones are far from plain. Sizes range from 0-16. A few of the spaghetti strap patterns look like they would never do for the large busted, but there are plenty of voluminous blouses to make up for it.
A few reviewers on Amazon complained about the printable patterns, which are included on a CD that comes with the book. In theory you are supposed to be able to print the patterns out onto 8.5×11″ paper and tape them together, but the reviewers complained about nonmatching pieces, confusion over dealing with printer margins, and the sheer amount of paper consumed. So that is something to keep in mind if you tend to be daunted by this type of thing.
You can’t get much different stylistically from Twinkle Sews than Linen Wool Cotton by Akiko Mano, but I can also see the same sewist loving both books equally. Like TS, it’s a celebration of different fibers and textures, and the projects are all about letting solid fabrics shine. Only this translated-from-Japanese book focuses on natural fibers and is all about simplicity — and it has a variety of projects, only a few of which are garments. They are all clean, serene, sweet, and lovely, and would make great beginner projects. It’s a perfect book especially if you are looking to work with linen or wool for the first time. There are no pattern pieces to deal with, only measurements and diagrams. To get an idea of the projects included, browse the book oh Shambhala’s site.
Book Month: Sew Liberated by Meg McElwee
Sew Liberated: 20 Stylish Projects for the Modern Sewist
by Meg McElwee, Interweave Press, 2009
If, like this reviewer, you had a baby a few years ago and revived your interest in crafting at the same time, you might remember seeing patterns on a blog called Montessori By Hand.
Ring a bell? Meg McElwee was living in Mexico teaching students the Montessori way and sharing her creative, useful sewing creations on her blog. Now, she’s moved back to the States, started SewLiberated.com, and designs and sells professional sewing patterns (when she’s not caring for her baby, Finn). Pretty impressive.
Wall Clock from Sew Liberated
Sew Liberated, the book, is the result of all those years of innovative pattern design. She focuses mostly on applique or “fabric collage” to incorporate scraps of beautiful fabric to projects that are fairly simple but lovingly embellished.
Baby Carrier from Sew Liberated
The book is divided into three categories: projects for making a house a home, projects for spoiling yourself, and projects for babies and children. And you just know that all that Montessori teaching (and the birth of her son) means that her kids’ projects are fantastic. She even includes a pattern for a Mei Tai baby carrier; despite the popularity of baby carriers today, this is the first pattern I’ve seen included in a sewing book. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)
The projects themselves are mostly standard craft-book fare: appliquéd quilts, tote bags, tunics, aprons. She does include a few that stand out for creativity: a folk-artsy embroidered wall clock and a DSLR camera bag are two.
What I really enjoyed about Meg’s book was the careful combination of fabrics in her projects. She stuck mostly to a rich, autumnal palette of olives, rusts, mustards and aquas, in fabrics including linen and corduroy.
Camera Bag from Sew Liberated
The instructions are thorough, and generally include an assembly diagram and one or two illustrations. At the back of the book, she even includes cutting layouts, pattern sheets, and an embroidery refresher.
Meg’s book is an appealing and beautifully designed and photographed collection of useful projects. It’s definitely getting pride of place on my bookshelf; I haven’t made any of her projects per se, but I’ve already been inspired by the applique design from her floor pillow project and am using it on a different project. If you’re looking for new embellishment and applique ideas, pick this one up.
Book Month: Review and Giveaway of Fabricate by Susan Wasinger
Fabricate: 17 Innovative Sewing Projects that Make Fabric the Star
Interweave Press, 2009
The beauty of Susan Wasinger’s Fabricate is the way she shows you how to create beautiful fabric, not just shop for it. For some of us living in the wilds of the American Midwest (far from a Bolt or a Purl Patchwork), that’s a pretty valuable skill.
Laminated wool felt laptop sleeve
The book is divided into four main sections according to technique:
- Pleats, crinkles and tufts
- Laminates and matrix
- Cut and fray
- Surface embellishment
Swatch matrix lampshade
She doesn’t have you creating the fabric from scratch — I mean, you’re not sitting there with, like, a sheep and a loom, going to town — but she does show you ways to take what you’ve got and make it better, different, more textural or just plain more interesting. For some projects, she shows how to embellish in a new or creative way; in others, she is creating the ground fabric from scraps or pieces (such as in the “swatch matrix” of tiny triangles forming a lampshade, or in the laminated felt laptop sleeve).
Simple chiffon skirt
Fabricate’s 17 projects look a little more sophisticated than most craft books today — or at least moreso than the ones I’m drawn to, in style if not in complexity. She uses materials like voile, silk dupioni and organza, in addition to more humble wool felt and cotton, in a light, sherbet-y palette. Many of the techniques are actually quite rough: tying, shredding, cutting. But the results look professional and neat.
Shag pillow
While the fabric-altering methods are not complex, Susan still walks you through each step. What I found most helpful was the photographic examples. And once you have altered or embellished your fabric according to her technique, she then provides a project pattern to turn that raw material into something pretty and useful. Wave-tucked linen becomes a dress; sheared silk becomes the Faux Chenille Shawl, eco felt becomes a Shag Pillow.
She does assume a base level of sewing knowledge. Where other sewing books dedicate a chapter to “The Essentials,” Susan keeps it simple with a page about fabric and a couple pages about recommended notions and sundries (she does do pretty amazing stuff with water-soluble stabilizer). There is a glossary in the back, but new sewists might still feel more comfortable with a second sewing reference or grandma nearby.
If you’re looking to punch up your stash a little, get outside the quilting-calico box, or just make something that doesn’t have the word “ironic” in the title, Fabricate is the book for you.
But you don’t have to take my word for it.
(Sorry. I”m not sure how to conclude a book review without sounding like Levar Burton.)
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We have one copy of Fabricate to give away! Just leave a comment on this post telling us a new fabric or textural technique you’ve recently worked with or are interested in trying out. Comments will close and a winner will be drawn on Wednesday, December 16, around 2pm Central U.S. time. This giveaway is open to readers worldwide. Good luck!
Book Month: Pattern Design and Fitting
Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified
Potter Craft, 2009
When I read about Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified
After discovering that pattern fitting wasn’t nearly as daunting as I thought, I was ready to consider custom pattern drafting within the realm of human possibility. And Cal Patch proves that the process isn’t nearly as daunting as it’s made out to be. Design-It-Yourself takes you step-by-step through pattern drafting and garment construction basics, with tutorials on including simple but beautiful variations like waistbands, plackets, yokes, ruffles, tucks, and gathers. I like how cute, inspiring-yet-achievable projects are included to guide you through the process — it’s not like you’re told how to take your measurements then dumped out in the cold to design every aspect of a dress on your own. The only complaint I have about the book is that the section on rub-offs (drafting patterns from existing clothes) seems too short and lacking in visuals for me to figure out. But it could be that once you’re versed in basic patternmaking it might all be obvious?
That’s a minor concern for an otherwise easy-to-understand, inspiring, enlightening book. Design-It-Yourself and Pattern Fitting With Confidence, perhaps topped with a French Curve
Book Month: Go Green
Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys
Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2008
Most of us consider the growing and harvesting of fibers and the production, printing, and finishing of the cloth in our assessment of whether a fiber is a “green” choice. But too often, oversimplification, myths, and greenwashing by marketers cloud the truth. In Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys, author Kate Fletcher discusses, in technical yet surprisingly readable detail, the environmental impact involved in every step of textile production and consumption process. Best practices for designers and manufacturers are listed throughout.
Fletcher also discusses labor practices, garment production and waste, travel, laundering, and disposal in depth. (Yes, laundering. Did you know that machine washing and drying a garment just once can consume many times more energy and than it took to make it in the first place?) Along the way, Fletcher highlights designers who are using sustainable practices — some familiar (Alabama Chanin, American Apparel) and some experimental (Lauren Montgomery Devenney’s stain dress, which is intended to look better as it acquires stains and smudges.)
This book was published early last year, but I only found out about it this year, and I’m so happy to have it in my library. If you are at all interested in organic fabric and sustainable sewing practices — whether you are a home sewer or in the textile or apparel trades — this book is a must-read.
…
Further Reading: Sewing Green: 25 Projects Made with Repurposed & Organic Materials
Book Month: More Surface Design Books
During book month, we’ll be following our longer reviews of recent titles with mini-reviews of similarly themed books. Mary Beth wrote about Amy Karol’s Bend the Rules With Fabric yesterday, so today, here are a handful of other surface design books, both new and old, that we think you’ll enjoy. And don’t forget, if you click on any of our Amazon links and make any purchase this month, the commission we earn will be donated to Caritas of Austin to help them serve citizens and refugees living in poverty.
The Art of Manipulating Fabric
Chilton Book Company, 1996
This is a classic book that deserves a renewed wave of love and sales amongst us modern sewist types. It has thorough tutorials on hundreds of ways to crinkle, gather, pleat, fold, smock, tuck, weave, knot, and quilt fabric to achieve all sorts of interesting textures, ranging from neat and clean to crazily complicated and artistic. Though it is over a decade old, it does not look dated — the photos and illustrations are black and white, and the techniques are presented on their own (there are no projects or patterns — you’re left to incorporate these techniques into your own designs or existing patterns). I checked this book out from the library and immediately realized that it HAS to be a part of my library. Since shirring was such a big trend this year, I’m looking forward to a wave of interest in other fabric manipulation techniques — and this is the essential book to guide your explorations.
Digital Textile Design
Lawrence King Publishing, 2009
I reviewed this book back in August, but just wanted to remind you of it as a gift idea for anyone interested in pattern design or digital textile printing.
Print Liberation: The Screen Printing Primer
North Light Books, 2008
This book came out last year, but I think it’s one of the best books for getting started in screenprinting that’s on the market right now. The “with” author Luren Jenison is an RISD graduate who specializes in textile design. Because of that I was hoping for more specific instruction about screenprinting in repeat on fabric yardage, but alas, all you get is inspirational images. That said, the inspirational images are really cool and the instructions for printing on paper, T-shirts, and more challenging surfaces — such as book covers and walls — are all illustrated with photographs, which I think for this craft in particular are more helpful than diagrams. The book has a decidedly punk attitude and aesthetic (mature punk, I’d say, but still punk), which is bad if you don’t like swear words and overt politics but very, very good if you want to learn screenprinting when funds and space are (very) limited. If anyone on your Christmas list has mentioned in passing, “oh, I’d really like to start screenprinting,” this is the book for them.
For printing books more specifically geared toward fabric, don’t forget these books reviewed previously: Printing by Hand
Book Month: Bend The Rules With Fabric by Amy Karol
Bend The Rules With Fabric: Fun Sewing Projects with Stencils, Stamps, Dye, Photo Transfers, Silk Screening, and More, by Amy Karol, Potter Craft, 2009.
Bend The Rules With Fabric is Amy Karol’s second book, the followup to the popular Bend The Rules Sewing and every bit as fun.
I assume you all know who Amy Karol is? She’s is the author of the popular Angry Chicken blog and well-known for her creative and irreverent take on home sewing. She pushes that creativity and irreverence a little further with this book; nine of the projects don’t even require sewing skills, just a sense of adventure.
More than just a book of projects and instructions, Amy explains each fabric-altering technique — painted, computer-assisted, dyed and mixed-media — and the pros and cons of each, and even recommends brands and substrates. She explains “Why This Method Will Make You Happy” and “Why This Method Will Make You Sad.” She lays out general instructions for different media and then step-by-step instructions for specific projects. For example, in the chapter called We Have The Technology, she covers:
- printing images onto fabric sheets
- creating your own fabric sheets
- applying iron-on transfers
- screen printing
And follows this with seven projects using these skills, techniques and materials.
Image from Bend The Rules With Fabric
As with Bend The Rules Sewing, this book strikes me as more diving board than road map; she explains how to do the basic techniques, shows you what you can do with them, then gives you a hug and exhorts you to go make something cool. If you wanted to make a project exactly like Amy’s, you could … but why not use her help to make something of your own?
My interpretation of the Drawing With Thread project
I used her tips in the Fiber on Fabric section called Drawing With Thread to make a felt cover for my moleskine notebook, cutting the felt to the dimensions recommended and sketching a little flower. I had neither a darning foot nor a free-motion sewing foot for my dinky machine (both recommended), so made do with a small embroidery hoop and no foot.
Image from Bend The Rules With Fabric
The result was tolerable, considering. I could have used the template in the back to make mine exactly like hers, and I appreciate having the exuberant originals to photocopy and trace. But her style is so unique it would feel more like copying than it might in other craft books.
Bend The Rules With Fabric is a book best suited for beginners to crafting with fabric and those looking to refine their technique. I’ve already experimented with fabric dyeing, potato printing, and computer transfer printing in the past; her tips help me realize what I’ve done wrong before, and point me toward materials that should give better results in the future.
If you enjoy a more unique and embellished look but need help getting started or deciding which technique is going to be right for you, then this book would be a good fit. And if you want support and cheerful encouragement in doing your own thing, well, then Amy Karol is the perfect teacher.
To see more interpretations on projects from the book, check out the Flickr group. For more Amy Karol, see her dot com, her blog (check out the video tutorials!) or her flickr stream.
Welcome to Book Month
2009 was sure a fantastic year for craft books, wasn’t it? Over the next two weeks we’ll be running reviews of all the recent textile and pattern-related titles we could get our hands on.
You might notice that we will be linking profusely to Amazon. As you might know, we receive a small commission if you follow a link and buy something (anything — it doesn’t have to be the book to which we link). BUT, I’ll be donating all of December’s referral fees to Caritas of Austin, an organization here in Austin that provides food, shelter, education, and employment for people experiencing poverty. So go crazy!
Felt Week: Kata Golda’s Handstitched Felt
Kata Golda’s Hand-Stitched Felt: 25 Whimsical Sewing Projects, by Kata Golda, with photography by Frank White, published by STC Craft, October 2009, 128 pages.
Some people have comfort food. Me, I have comfort reading. So Kata Goldman’s Hand-Stitched Felt is like mashed potatoes in craft book form, a book I’d like to crawl into on a cold and stormy day or after a fight. Her wee felt creatures — mice, bunnies, bears — are so obviously and gloriously made with tender care, each stitch shining from the fabric. Their little faces make me smile. And the photography is like whoa; were I writing this from the local coffee shop, the patrons would be giving me funky looks for trying to pet the book I’m reviewing.
I have very little experience with felt in general and wool felt in particular, so this book was my first introduction to Kata Golda’s work. I hope to amend the situation toute-suite, of course; a few sheets of felt and my hand-sewing kit would yield a beautiful project, if her notes are anything to go by. Kata includes 25 projects in this book — more if you count her suggestions for customizing or using alternate design templates.
For those of us new to hand-sewing (or just a bit rusty) she includes a brief section on the tools needed (just a few: felt, needle, floss) and the main embroidery stitches which, in conjunction with the embroidery floss, make up the soul and character of the projects. She also gives a technique for transferring pattern designs using paper.
The projects themselves are refreshingly simple. The beauty comes from the careful planning of colors and motifs and especially the care taken in forming the stitches. Though they are supposed to look handmade, these projects don’t look sloppy or hastily done, which can be a real danger when taking large stitches on a more elemental fabric such as felt. Instead they look accessible and soft and relaxed. My kind of attitude.
The projects include not just baby and children’s items, which I would expect in a book about wool felt, but also accessories for your person, home and office. I think even someone totally new to hand-sewing should be able to master the stitches with the aid of her instructions.
Kata lives in Port Townsend, WA, where she lives and works and seems to have it going on. (“Nestled snugly amongst the comings and goings of friends and family in a small, mossy seaside town, Kata Golda has grown into a flourishing business and creative space while allowing me to stay true to what I love to do.” That’s the life.)
For a little more about Kata’s take on felt and color, see her interview on The Purl Bee (she used to be a professional quilter!). And if you’re eager to get stitchin’, her eyeglasses case project from the book is available in full at Design*Sponge.
For more Kata Golda, check out her blog, with links to news and appearances, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook. And if you want to see some adorable felt mice drinking coffee and dancing, you better check out this video.
Review: Amy Butler Softwares
Kevin Kosbab of Feed Dog Designs, our senior PC-using correspondent, reviewed Electric Quilt’s Stash software for us last month. He’s back today with this very helpful and thorough review of Amy Butler Softwares, which was released in May 2009.
Amy Butler Softwares is a collection from the Electric Quilt Company of 22 quilt, home dec, and bag projects by eponymous designer, with digital patterns and instructions for you to sew up your own versions. The Windows-only program (i.e., requires virtualization software to run on a Mac) lets you change the fabrics, alter block layouts, and resize projects before printing out accurate templates for your customized versions. Along with the eight quilts, three table runners, eight pillows and cushions, and three bags, the program also boasts nine “bonus” projects, which true Butler fans will recognize as free downloads from her website.
More than just a collection of patterns, Softwares is like a virtual pattern book. The CD includes all the lush lifestyle photography you’d expect from a high-end craft book, but having templates and instructions in digital form encourages you to play around with the patterns and print just what you want or need (I followed the sewing instructions onscreen, and printed materials lists to go shopping). It’s a great idea, and I hope more publishers follow suit.
The designs themselves are in the clean, classic style that’s Amy Butler’s trademark, each made up in her quilting and/or home dec fabric. Many non-quilt projects are shown in two or three different color stories (am I the only one who hates that phrase?) — another idea I wish would become more common. While the photos are lovely, sometimes they’re more dramatic than practical, “lifestyle” shots that obscure the projects. In fact, many photos don’t depict the project at all — they may just show a vase of flowers or some other unrelated object that inspired the design.
I found these to get in the way, but Amy acolytes may appreciate the broader focus and will also want to check out the included “Inspired by Amy” gallery, featuring other crafters’ work using Butler’s fabrics.
The informational parts of the program navigate like a web browser, with separate tabs to see the project photos and instructions, play with the layouts, choose fabrics, “embellish” (i.e., choose thread colors), and print the templates. The project instructions are thorough, and terms and techniques a beginner might be unfamiliar with link to a glossary. You can follow the instructions on-screen (see screenshot above) or print off a PDF. I was a little cross that the links to PDF opened in Internet Explorer regardless of my system preference for Firefox, and really, couldn’t they have just opened in Reader? If you dig the PDFs out of their default folder (Program Files\Electric Quilt Company\amy butler softwares\html\pages\4\pdfs) and open them in a reader with annotation capabilities, you can keep track of your changes to the pattern and any other notes — I found this really handy while putting this review together.
Yardage is usually given for both quilting-weight 44-inch and home-dec 54-inch fabric — very helpful, though the yardage estimates often seemed excessive. The Truest Triangle Table Runner called for 1 3/8 yards for backing plus 3/8 yards for binding; I bound and backed mine from a single yard. Similarly, the straps for the Carry Anything Carry-All bag call for 1 1/8 yards, but cutting them across the yardage only requires 30 inches (less if you’re using wider home-dec fabric) — with four layers of sturdy fabric folded into the strap, I wasn’t concerned about any strength lost by not cutting parallel to the selvage. I certainly prefer instructions to err on the side of extra fabric, but if you like to buy the least amount of fabric possible for a project, I recommend taking that extra step of reading through the pattern to see if you can fit the pattern pieces into a smaller area. Also, the pillows sometimes give yardage for making two pillows, which can be less straightforward than simple division when you’re just making one.
The engine for manipulating the projects is a version of EQ; it works great for the quilts but is a little awkward for pillows, which show up with each side (front and back) as “blocks.” (See screenshot above.) I was hoping to see interactive elements for altering the dimensions of bags on the Projects tab, but bags are absent from that section — happily, though, the bonus projects are included. For the projects that do have layouts, you can recolor each patch with the Amy Butler print or solid of your choice (the selection varies by project; you can also use generic solid colors) to see how the design will look before you put the real thing together. The program provides instructions for opening the project files in EQ6 (if you have it) to recolor with any fabrics in your library there — amongst others, I used the Midcentury Modern swatches handily included in previously reviewed STASH to test my version of Truest Triangle before I sewed it up.
Printing the pattern templates on regular paper and taping sheets together can be tedious, especially when, as for Truest Triangle, each template has to be printed separately (you can only print multiple templates together when they’re part of the same “block”). I had to keep reminding myself that I’d far rather print and tape than have to take a trip to the copy shop and wrestle with enlargements and distortion. And of course, the true beauty of print-it-yourself patterns is that you can get accurate templates whether or not you make the project at the default size. Still, when it came time to print the pattern for the back of my Pinwheel Pillow, I just drew a 25-inch circle on oversized paper.
Amy Butler’s Pinwheel Floor Cushion (above) and Kevin’s version (below)
I was actually more interested in the Pinwheel Floor Cushion than the Pillow, but it required a 27-inch disk of foam that priced out to $40 (thankfully the software includes a link to a supplier). Be sure to use strong polyester thread for piecing the pillow top — I used cotton and had the seams pop several times when stuffing the form in. The detailed instructions were easy to follow; the hardest part was making the cording I used in place of the ball fringe.
Amy Butler’s Truest Triangle Table Runner (above) and Kevin’s version (below)
The instructions for the table runner were also highly detailed and fully illustrated. They suggested stitch-in-the-ditch quilting; I added some argyle-ish lines through the triangles to give it a bit more texture. It was a quick size to piece and quilt; I’m using it as a housewarming gift if I can part with it. Look closely and you’ll see an actual Amy Butler print amidst the others!
Amy Butler’s Carry Anything Carry-All (above) and Kevin’s version (below)
I liked the simple shape of the Carry Anything Carry-All and made a version to drag quilts and stuff back and forth to guild meetings and workshops. The roomy bag is great for this, though I swapped the end handles for pockets and added pockets to the inside lining. Making the bag was an education in interfacings — three different types are called for. They gave the bag a nice structure, but it’s worth noting that in some places you’re sewing through 6 layers of fabric and up to 8 layers of various interfacings—and that’s not counting the extra bulk when sewing over seam allowances! I used a heavy-ish denim for the body, and my sturdy machine only choked a couple times at the thickest seams, but I suspect some machines would have just laughed at the thought.
Overall, the digital patterns allowed more flexibility than a printed pattern or book, they suited the way I work very well, and the list price of $29.95 is fairly comparable to craft book prices. I hope this is a sign of more to come from Electric Quilt and others.
Thanks again, Kevin! Amy Butler Softwares is available through Amy Butler’s webstore, the Electric Quilt website, and from independent fabric shops.
My Big Digital Fabric Printing Experiment
Earlier this year Fabric on Demand joined the pioneering Spoonflower in offering affordable digital fabric printing over the internet to the everyday crafter. Soon after, two more services popped up, Karma Kraft and Eye Candey. (Full disclosure: the latter two are also True Up sponsors.)
I had a single design printed by all four services to compare them. Unfortunately, I didn’t think the process through sufficiently. I followed one service’s directions thoroughly for file preparations but not the others (I thought I had, but I hadn’t). I communicated directly with one service what my intentions were with the colors, but not the others. So in the end, I wasn’t comparing apples to apples, and that makes me unable to answer the question “which service is the best?”
Hopefully, though, this post will help you figure out which is the best for you.
The Design. When I started this process, I had just bought the Check & Knit volume of the Petite Pattern series
From the picture on the page in the book, I expected a near-true black and only slightly off-white white. I didn’t think much about the yellow, green, or orange, actually. I sent a 150dpi .tif to Spoonflower, and 300dpi .tifs to the other services.
The Results. Across the board, I was impressed with the customer service and the quality of the basecloths. When I took sufficient time to follow the service’s recommendations for file preparation and specified my colors, the print quality was awesome. Otherwise, they had poor line quality and/or washed-out colors. However, all the services worked with me to get a final result I was happy with.
I followed Spoonflower’s instructions on color correction to a T. Their fabric is on the left. I sent the wrong file type to Eye Candey, and didn’t do any color correcting, resulting in washed-out looking colors. Note the saturation of the black area in particular.
So the #1 most important thing I learned through this experience is that the adage “garbage in, garbage out” is very true for digital fabric printing. I’m not saying your designs are garbage, but that if you don’t do any color management, it is highly unlikely that the results will meet your expectations.
The colors you perceive on your screen do not and cannot exactly match (or in some cases, even come close to) the colors that comes out of a printer and onto a substrate. To ensure colors meet your expectations, you must build or alter your design according to a standardized color reference — ideally, the full array of colors possible from the printer you intend to use, printed onto the basecloth that you intend to use. You can buy these printouts (or will be able to soon) from all four services. (Karma Kraft also offers Pantone Fashion + Home and Sherwin Williams Color Book matching.) For those with limited resources, making this up-front investment pretty much ties you to that service, and you might be wondering which service to make that commitment to.
I do recommend each of the companies, but each has its own price range, basecloth offerings, printing technology, file requirements, and extra services. I’ve prepared this free downloadable .pdf that compares all these factors at a glance. Decide what factor(s) are the most important to you and choose the service that fits your needs. Need silk, or cut & sew service, or want to use reactive dyes? Right now, Karma Kraft is your only choice. Or maybe you like the community that Spoonflower has built, and their fabric-of-week contests. If you want to sell your designs to the public, Eye Candey is the only place right now that offers a built-in webshop. And Fabric on Demand currently has the lowest price for custom printing on basic cotton. If you’re still undecided, I’d say go with the website you feel most comfortable using, and offers the level of guidance about file preparation that you need.
All four swatches after laundering. There was no significant color fading after washing with any of the fabrics, except for the black areas of pigment-printed fabrics.
Close-up of Karma Kraft fabric. They use reactive dyes so the colors are more saturated.
Spoonflower’s fabric. I printed the design at a larger scale at a lower dpi than with the other companies, but I didn’t notice a difference in line quality. The colors are still strong; the green and orange drops really pop.
Fabric on Demand’s fabric. I did not color-correct this file and the colors turned out dull. By some fluke, the line quality was poor, but they printed it again for me and the results were great (see image with black pen below).
Fabric from Eye Candey. I sent them the same file I sent Fabric on Demand, which turned out to be the wrong file format for them (RGB vs. CMYK), and results were similarly disappointing. Owner Joy applied a different printer profile, which resulted in almost a whole new colorway of a khaki-gray (instead of off-white) and dark gray (instead of black). I actually kind of like it! Like other pigment-using companies, the black didn’t fare well in the wash.
There are a few more things I learned from this experience:
Pigments vs. reactive dyes. Current digital inkjet printers for cellulose fabrics (cotton, silk, rayon, etc.) can print with either water-soluble pigments or reactive dyes. Reactive dyes require pre-treated basecloth, steam-setting, laundering out of excess dyes, and drying. Pigments can be printed on untreated cloth and only require heat-setting after printing, and so are more environmentally friendly than reactive dyes — virtually no waste ink ends up in the water system. However, I’ve heard it argued that you can achieve more deeply saturated and more washfast colors with reactive dyes than you can with pigments, and that’s what I found with my limited experiment, especially with …
Black. It is difficult if not impossible to achieve true black with pigment inks when printing onto a white basecloth. Thanks to Fabric on Demand, who took this image of my design against a black pen for comparison (above). I had no problems with any of the fabrics fading after laundering swatches with my biodegradable detergent, except pigment-printed black. This is a limitation to keep in mind if your design contains solid black.
Inspect your fabric thoroughly on arrival. Check that the design is on-grain, that there are no smudges, unprinted spots, or other defects. If you sent your design at the specified dpi, you should get sharp lines (unless your design doesn’t have sharply deliniated areas of color). All the companies will happily replace flawed fabric. Each company’s return policy is still evolving, but I think the general consensus is that color is the customer’s responsibility — which underscores the importance of color management and ordering swatches before committing to a larger order.
And speaking of evolution … Spoonflower, at the ripe old age of one year and a few months, has been around the longest of these four companies. All of them are constantly refining the functionality of their websites and expanding their offerings. I will be updating the chart accordingly to the best of my ability, so keep checking back.
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I hope this guide was helpful to you! I felt at times that the technical aspects of digital printing were a bit over my head, so if those of you out there in the know catch any errors, please let me know.
Book Review: Digital Textile Design
This is the first in a mini-series of posts about digital fabric printing that we’ll be posting over the remainder of this week. Check back tomorrow for a digital printing service roundup, and on Friday for a big list of ideas and inspiration.
Digital Textile Design
Lawrence King Publishing, London, U.K., 2009
Thanks to the emergence of digital textile printing (DTP), we’ve all been granted access to world that was previously accessible to a few. Some people have opened the door and peeked in, but are too scared to jump in and explore. Some have jumped in, but failed to negotiate the new language and technology, and have left disappointed. Some are fully in, but are sticking to old-world customs and not exploring what the new world has to offer.
The new book Digital Textile Design
In fact, anyone interested in textiles, whether or not they plan on ever using DTP themselves, will find this book valuable. Most of the 23 tutorials (listed in detail after the jump) are applicable to pattern design in general, not matter your end use. Experienced textile designers may find the tutorials too basic, but there is still plenty to learn from the artist profiles and overview of the state of the art and technology of DTP. There is even a section about how artists and crafters are combining DTP with traditional surface design methods (handpainting, screenprinting, resist dyeing, burnout, flocking, embellishment) to bring hand-rendered touches to this mechanical process. The only thing I was hoping for that I didn’t find was specifics on how to ensure your fabrics turn out with the colors you’re expecting, but that makes sense since each printing service has different methods and requirements. (More on color management in tomorrow’s post.)
You can preview several sample pages on the Laurence King website, and even more on co-author Melanie Bowles’ site. While you’re there, check out her beautiful digital shibori work — she also recently launched a blog, Make It Digital.
Review: Stash
Like many Mac-using sewists, I’ve been tempted many times to “go PC” just to have a chance to play around with the The Electric Quilt Company’s software. But when the opportunity recently arose to review the Spring 2009 edition of (the Mac-incompatible) Stash, I was happy to have an excuse to ask Kevin Kosbab of Feed Dog guest star on True Up. Kevin is a quilter, designer, writer, and vintage fabric connoisseur who knows his way around Electric Quilt. Welcome, Kevin!
Stash is a Windows program (I tested on a Vista system) featuring 5,600 digital swatches of current quilting fabric lines from 32 manufacturers. The program has been put out twice a year since 1999, so the Spring 2009 edition includes fabric that’s hitting the shelves right now. Favorite designers like Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner are included, as well as new designers and uncredited in-house designs (often some of my favorites). The list of manufacturers is pretty comprehensive — Moda, FreeSpirit, Michael Miller, and most of the usual suspects are there; a noticeable gap for me was the absence of Alexander Henry. From this list you can drill down to fabric collections (including many put out in 1999, apparently included for compatibility reasons).
I keep up with the new lines pretty well, but I was still surprised to see some friendly new faces amongst the fabric. You can then save the fabrics you like to a “Shopping Bag,” printable for taking to the fabric store. Each fabric has a “Notecard” containing information like the designer and the SKU number, helpful for tracking down fabrics online or in local shops.
I added coordinated swatches from several lines in the Shopping Bag capped here — the Bag can also function as a virtual design wall to see if you like the way different fabrics work together.
While technically a standalone program, the real benefits of Stash depend on using it with the Electric Quilt Company’s flagship quilt design program, Electric Quilt 6 (EQ6). The Stash swatches can be linked into the Fabric Library in EQ6 (or its predecessor, EQ5) for use in quilt layouts designed there, saving you the hassle of scanning fabric or importing Internet images of varying quality. Stash vastly augments the 5,277 fabric images included with EQ6 (mainly cover long-life “basics” from various manufacturers, all printed before the program’s release in 2007).
Swatches from Stash (left) compared to images from manufacturers’ websites (right).
The colors seem fairly accurate in the Stash swatches compared to the actual fabric, though of course mileage will vary depending on your monitor’s color fidelity. The scans in Stash are high quality and consistently sized, reflecting the actual scale of the print in your EQ designs whatever the size of the patch you create. Small enough prints tile nearly perfectly in repeat, though fabrics with relatively large motifs or repeats— the kind often favored by today’s big-name designers — will have clipped edges, so you may not be able to see the full repeat (examples below).
The scale used in Stash itself is also fixed at EQ scale — that is, not actual size, so it can be hard to tell how big a print is without a swatch you’re familiar with for reference.
Probably the most powerful feature of Stash — in theory — is its ability to search the fabrics by color or design category (i.e., small floral, geometric, hand-dyed look, etc., but only after picking a color to start the search from). Unfortunately, I didn’t have much success with either search method. Occasionally a search would bring up swatches from the outdated 1999 fabrics, but I was never able to get one of the current swatches to appear. And most of the time the searches, whether by color or by category, would come up blank. Searching by color in EQ6 didn’t find any Stash fabrics either, but it was able to turn up Stash fabrics when searching by Notecard text — something not possible within Stash itself. This is a useful ability, since you might know a line is called “City something” … “City Girl”? “City Sparkle”? Or you might remember the name of a designer but not the name of her new line, much less the company she’s attached to. The Notecard text cannot be edited and saved in Stash, but you can copy a swatch to the “My Library” section in EQ6 and add your own notes or keywords (or the name of individual prints; Stash lists only the line name) in the copied swatch’s Notecard.
Stash is fun to browse through and a useful add-on if you like to keep your EQ6 library up to date with what’s in your actual, real-life stash. If you don’t mind spending $50 a year on the Fall and Spring editions, a full set of the Stash volumes would make an admirable fabric archive even without EQ. (Previous editions are still available, but like most fabric collections, they’re not reproduced once the run sells out.) Shop owners may also appreciate the multi-manufacturer overview, perhaps using the Shopping Bag to ensure they order fabrics that coordinate across various lines and designers. But instead of spending $24.95, you may prefer to download the latest swatches from your favorite manufacturers’ sites.
Thank you so much, Kevin! Stay tuned for his review of Amy Butler Softwares.
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