How to Make Surface Designs on Fabric for Spoonflower

I based them on retro robot toys and ideas with simple shapes and an analogue feel. Each one has their own personality but is also strangely inefficiently designed as well. Exactly what tasks would they do?

After finishing these basic robot designs, I used them to create a repeating pattern for my surface designs. I added a white border around the robots so they would stand out against a striped background.

But in order to make a ‘collection’ of surface designs that went together organically, I played around with different pattern and color ideas. Some have spots and some have silhouettes of the robots in the background.

The colors were all sampled from the original robot designs. This creates a collection that can easily be mixed and matched.

Spoonflower isn’t too hard to navigate. Set up an account, then start uploading your designs! They have a limit on the size of file you can upload, so watch out for that.

Once uploaded you have to proof the design (look closely at the edges of the repeating design!) before you can set it up for sale. Give it a name and description, then add categories and tags.

Spoonflower also has options for how you want your pattern to repeat (mirror, drop-repeat, etc) and options for resizing your pattern so that it is bigger or smaller on a foot by foot basis.

(Check out these options under the “edit products” fields when you are editing your design. Specifically the ‘fabric’ and ‘wallpaper’ products are ones you can edit. All the other products pick up on those settings.)

The resizing options for Spoonflower’s different products are a bit limited (especially when you have a big pattern and would love to make it smaller on napkins and such, but can’t). A work-around is to upload the same design twice with different names, and use different sizing on each. Then you can have the pattern in a small size that works well with smaller products like placemats, but larger for sheets and fabric.

You also have to order one sample (not one of each, just one sample for your whole account) before you can list products for sale on your account. The fabric arrived promptly, and helped me ensure the colors were translating correctly — check out my sample below! The designs were sharp and really nicely printed.

Another cool thing about Spoonflower is that you can create a ‘collection’ of your designs for people to shop. For sewers and crafters looking to make a project with a few different fabrics this is an easy way to show off how well your designs will work together.

I created some basic fabrics with just simple patterns or solid colors that match with the robots and added them to the collection. (below)

This saves someone from having to search out a matching color to use, then finding out it doesn’t quite match!

Check out my whole Retro Robot collection on Spoonflower over here.

In addition to fabric (in lots of different types!) there are other print-on-demand products you can sell through Spoonflower. Pillows, tablecloths, curtains, napkins, sheets, table runners, blankets, tea towels, wallpaper, placemats and more…

Here’s just a few designs that I think turned out really well!

You can shop these by selecting the pattern you like and looking at the offered products on Spoonflower over here.

Hope this helps! If you turn your own designs into fabric, let me know in the comments below!

Learn more about me as an illustrator or check out the kid’s books I’ve illustrated over on my website here.

Say hello over on BlueSky where I hang out quite a bit!