Years ago, Linda Greene introduced us to Spoonflower by handing out little welcome packs at guild, but the whole thing seemed way “out there” to me at the time. It took my hip daughter Elizabeth to kick me into gear this year.
In honor of my niece’s wedding, Elizabeth found this great project online: How to Turn Handwritten Recipes into Tea Towels. I couldn’t improve on the instructions in that blog if I tried, so I’ll just give you a précis… Scan in 3×5 recipe cards and arrange them in a JPG sizing the result to 36”x54”. Then order 1 yard of that design in Linen-Cotton Canvas. When it comes, cut them apart & hem.
The entire time I was working on the towels not-exactly-yardage projects popped into my head. The Linen-Cotton Canvas would be a fabulous customized chef’s apron with a collage of personal memorabilia. You could design your own “panel” for a round robin center. You could arrange perfect wedges of a floral closeup to build your own kaleidoscope or stack-n-whack. The result would be much better ink and larger formats than our inkjet printers, easier, not particularly expensive considering the costs of inkjet cartridges and fabric for printing. You could even design custom quilt labels and order just a $5 swatch by positioning your swatch correctly on your design.
Want to get started?
- Create a Spoonflower account –free.
- Make your design using photo software of your choice. DPI (dots per inch) is important – Spoonflower likes 150. You’ll find lots of advice & tips in the FAQs.
- Upload your design to Spoonflower – free.
- Order a $5 swatch (8”x8”) to test your colors, fabric, and image quality.
- Order the fabric. The price depends on what fabric you order. Kona Cotton quilting weight is $16.50 for 42×36, and the Linen-Cotton Canvas is $24.30 for 54×36. Here’s the whole list: Products & Pricing
Susan Kraterfield
SQG 
Susan – Thanks for sharing. I can’t wait to try a small project. Your creativity always impresses me!