My first textile design has arrived!

In early September I sat in my summer house and got my brown ink out to doodle just to see what came out of me without any reference.. all I had in mind were late summer pods and the seedheads that have been appearing in the garden.  My acrylics came out to embellish and colour my drawings and I painted a loose yellow background on canvas and some simple elements.

When I had lots to play with I scanned all these bits and pieces in and made a repeat in Photoshop using the offset tool I'd read about in a book I bought recently called A field Guide to Fabric Design which is just brilliant. I liked it the result so much that I ordered some fabric from the US site Spoonflower the same day and it arrived this morning! It took about 3 weeks to arrive.

The only downside was the cost.. I had to pay £11.33 customs duty for this small amount of fabric, which had already cost me about £20. Naturally I tweeted about this and some lovely Notonthehighstreet partners Lindsey of LittleBirdyDesigns and Hilly of WhichGlassesAreWhich told me that there are in fact UK companies that do this sort of thing and to read the post on the forum about it (will do!) Gretel Parker gave me the name of a new company called Fancy Prints that will print your own designs too.

Sadly much as I am pleased with the fabric from Spoonflower it's not a sensible buying choice, unless I am buying just a swatch - in which case it might scrape in as duty free. I think I will make future designs available to buy from there though - that's not a problem.

Now what shall I make with it? I think as there are just two fat quarters and the fabric I chose is a sort of sturdy linen cotton that a bag might be nice.. what do you think? Although we do need cushions I think it would make a nice tote bag. I might hunt one of my talented sewing friends down to see if they are prepared to make me one :)

Have you ever had your own designs printed as fabric ?