Milk and sleep are the only things I’m able to think about these days, so it’s kind of funny that this story on milk fabric has popped up (via Spoonflower on Twitter). With the rising cost of cotton and the growing interest in more environmentally friendly textiles, maybe milk fabric will catch on. Well, the [...]
{ Harmony Art‘s knit prints } I have to admit, though I have a few yards of it in my stash, I’ve never sewn with knits in my life. But Stitch Simple‘s recent Great Knit Fabric Experiment is getting me motivated. If you aren’t already familiar with Stitch Simple, it’s an online shop offering [...]
{ Some nicely ripped fabric from my stash. } My post from a few weeks back Do You True Up? garnered lots of great feedback (both in the comments and via email), and I learned a thing or two, so I wanted to post a follow-up. One big surprise for me was that it sounds [...]
This blog will turn three years old in just a couple months, and I haven’t yet written a post about the sewing term after which this site is named — trueing up. For shame! Well, let’s make up for lost time. “True up” means means to make balanced, straight, square. In sewing, it means to [...]
In advance of their upcoming trade show in New York City from January 10-12, 2011, Printsource has released a Top Ten list of print ideas for Spring/Summer 2012. The list was compiled by surface design studio Pattern People to highlight trends in the fashion and home textiles markets. (By the way, Pattern People is an [...]
The first recap of the recent Fabric Design Weekend in Atlanta is — Ellen of The Long Thread shares a big list of low-tech fabric printing techniques. Copy that list and paste it into your crafty bucket list! Update: Event host Deborah has a recap with plenty of pictures here.
Via Wren, I learned that this year is the 250th birthday of toile. She created two toile patterns (including “Darling Toile,” above) in honor of her native South Africa for the design magazine Visi. They’re free for download from this link. Even if you’re not interested in toile or modern twists on it, it’s worth [...]
The Daily Swatch features a piece of vintage fabric (almost) every day. Themes change periodically. Please add your own examples of the theme to the True Up and/or Vintage Fabric Flickr pools. Seersucker gets its characteristic puckered texture from a special weaving process. Some warp yarns are put on the loom with regular tension, while [...]
The Daily Swatch features a piece of vintage fabric (almost) every day. Themes change periodically. Please add your own examples of the theme to the True Up and/or Vintage Fabric Flickr pools. Terry cloth is a uncut-pile weave fabric. Pile fabrics (which also include velvet and corduroy) are made with an extra set of yarn [...]
To go along with this week’s daily swatch theme, a roundup of bicycle fabrics you can actually buy! (I know, I should do this more often … ) Phillipa by artist Grayson Perry, part of last year’s Liberty of London Art Collection. Spotted at Purl Soho in three colorways. I like how the bikes [...]
Update 12/3/10 — This chart is already a bit outdated in terms of what the American printers offer! For Europeans, there are two printing services for you to consider, Stoff-Schmei.de (reactive dyes) and Stoff’n (pigments). Hopefully I’ll have an updated chart finished in the next couple months. Last summer I tested out four digital fabric [...]
Unlike the floral print I showed you on Friday, you can actually see both the horizontal and vertical edges of the repeat in this one(from the vintage collection of chickadee nest on Flickr). First, we isolate a motif and connect the dots. Triangle = half-drop. (I screened back the fabric a little so you can [...]
It’s a little trickier to find geometric one-way designs but I think I’ve done it. Although this print could be turned upside down or sideways and still work, it wouldn’t look exactly the same — the pink/orange/brown rainbows would be frowning and the yellow/black rainbows would be smiling. From Robotic Kid on Flickr.
Just because it’s one-way doesn’t mean everything has to sit straight up-and-down. This Americana print feedsack on eBay (ends in five hours! hurry!) has the feel and flow of a tossed print, even though you can only turn it one way. I’m thinking the designer intended this to be transformed into an apron.
Lizzy House, designer of adorable fabric lines Lizzy Dish, Red Letter Day, and the upcoming Castle Peeps (all for Andover Fabrics), recently spilled about a book she’s written (well, an e-book, but a book’s a book in my book) called How To Enter The World Of Textile Design: For The Quilting Industry. Since I started [...]
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