Tag Archives: diy with digital fabrics

Cotton Drill Fabric

We thought it would be a great time to introduce another one of our favourite natural fabrics, Cotton Drill! You’ve definitely heard of it, but what is it used for? Below we’ve listed the fabrics specs, printing characteristics and the types of projects, products and applications we think this fabric is perfect for!

Cotton Drill is a wonderful mid-weight cotton fabric with a crisp white base. The fabric is strong in construction without being heavy or rigid. The fabric is 195GSM, has a maximum printable width of 140cm, and features a beautiful twill weave and texture. Due to its bright white base, the Cotton Drill provides great colour reproduction when printed!

Please keep in mind when considering our Cotton Drill for your next project, that it’s normal for some fading to occur after washing with printed natural fabrics. Fading can be minimized through hand-washing in cool water and using a phosphate-free detergent.

Cotton Drill is extremely versatile and can be used across both apparel and interiors applications. Popular uses for the fabric are skirts, jackets, dresses, tablecloths and runners, napkins, banners, cushions, curtains and tea towels. We’ve included some examples below of the types of projects that this fabric is the ideal choice for!

Tea towel

A-line skirt

Jacket or coat

Cushion covers

Sample swatches of the Cotton Drill are available through our Sample Pack Order Form and can be found in our ‘Natural Fabrics’, ‘Home and Interiors Fabrics’ and ‘Super pack’ sample packs. Get in touch to find out if this fabric will be suitable for your upcoming project!

Custom Fabric Printing for Summer Beach Essentials

We thought we’d try something different and put together a guide that’s sure to get you beach ready. Let’s talk Summer essentials! Think durable tote bags, deluxe beach throws, quirky board shorts, divine kaftans and fun swimwear of course. Whether you’re an expert with a sewing machine or just getting a feel for custom textiles, the end of year holidays are the perfect time to start a DIY project. There’s nothing more satisfying than using your art to create something that’s both unique and practical to enjoy. In this article we go through our stock fabric top picks for the season and the popular beach products they’re perfect for so keep reading!

Image via Pinterest

COTTON LINEN – 97% Cotton / 3% Linen & 250gsm

Let start simple! Have you seen Turkish Towels or gorgeous Beach Throws? They’re trending Summer essentials and we think our Cotton Linen is the perfect fabric to use.

Cotton Linen is a wonderfully textured natural fibre blend with a durable weave. The fabric has a warm off-white base colour and a matte finish. To use this fabric for a beach throw simply print your custom design and then cut & hem the edges – easy!

Image via Pinterest

COTTON VOILE – 100% Cotton & 75gsm

Want to make your own kaftan or sarong for the warm weather? We think this is another simple project with our Cotton Voile being the perfect fabric for the job!

Cotton Voile is light-weight and super soft and can be compared to muslin, especially after washing as this fabric will only get softer over time! It has an off-white base colour, is semi-sheer and has a matte finish. This fabric is light and airy to wear making it perfect for poolside wraps and ultra-chic kaftans.

Image via Pinterest

CANVAS – 100% Polyester & 300gsm

Interested in custom beach totes? Look no further! Our Polyester Canvas is just what you need to create a sturdy tote bag!

Our Polyester Canvas is a first choice canvas fabric which is highly durable and softens over time the more you use it. This is a plain weave fabric with a bright white base which ensures vibrant printing results ideal for beach accessories. This fabric is also easy to clean and is water resistant making this the ideal choice for beach bags.

Image via Pinterest

VESNA (ECO-LYCRA) – 85% Recycled Polyester / 15% Spandex & 230gsm

For swimwear garments we recommend checking out our Vesna (Eco Lycra)! It’s an absolute must have fabric to rock an eco-friendly bikini this summer!

Vesna (Eco-Lycra) is an innovative fabric made using recycled plastic bottles! It has an off-white base, a smooth surface and moisture wicking properties. The fabric produces vibrant print results and the surface’s slight sheen will make your artwork pop! The Vesna has an even four-way stretch, a chlorine rating between 4-5 and a UPF rating of 50+ making it the perfect choice for your custom swimwear.

Image via Pinterest

AEROCORP – 100% Polyester & 125gsm

Ever considered creating your own board shorts? We think our Aerocorp fabric is an excellent choice to bring a custom pair of boardies to life!

Aerocorp is a light-weight, microfiber fabric with a smooth and fine texture. It has a bright white base and a matte finish and has excellent colour reproduction when printed. It also provides moisture management and breathability, making it super comfortable to wear – perfect for lounging by the pool.

Image via Pinterest

Ready to start your creative summer project? Order your custom fabric today! If you’re still unsure which of our fabrics will suit your project best, please get in touch!

Cotton Linen Fabric

Been interested in printing on our Cotton Linen fabric, however unsure if it will suit your work? Then keep reading! Below we’ve listed this fabrics specs, printing characteristics and the types of projects, products and applications we think it’s perfect for! You’ll soon find out why this fabric is consistently one of our most popular fabrics.

Cotton Linen is a fabulous natural fibre blend (97% Cotton / 3% Linen) with a gorgeous texture and durable weave. This sturdy fabric is 250gsm, has zero stretch and a maximum printable width of 140cm.The fabric has a warm off-white base colour (think cereal milk or fresh cream) and a matte finish. Its robust weave provides great colour reproduction when printed! When considering the Cotton Linen for your next project please keep in mind that some fading after washing is normal for natural fabrics that have been used for digital printing. The fading often gives our printed natural fabrics a softer finish which suits the natural fibre itself. Fading can be minimized through the use of cold hand-washing and phosphate free detergent.

Our Cotton Linen is a really versatile, premium choice fabric, which gives a deluxe yet relaxed feel to homewares, garments and displays. It is often selected by customers as an alternative to Cotton Canvas fabrics. Popular applications for the Cotton Linen include cushion covers, upholstery, tailored jackets, bags, tea towels, wall hangings, art displays and event back drops. We’ve included some examples below of the types of projects that this fabric is the ideal choice for!

Image via Pinterest

Sample swatches of the Cotton Linen are available through our Sample Pack Order Form and can be found in our ‘Fashion Fabrics’, ‘Natural Fabrics’, ‘Home and Interiors Fabrics’ and ‘Superpack’ sample packs. Get in touch to find out if this fabrics will be suitable for your next project!

New Cotton Voile Fabric

As many of you know we’ve been out of stock of a Cotton Voile for sometime (sorry) but at last – we have good news! We are very excited to announce we have added a brand NEW Cotton Voile fabric to our Natural Fabrics Fabric Range! Keep reading for more info below as our new Cotton Voile is distinctly different from our older stock fabric, and we think a more premium product!

Cotton Voile is 100% Cotton and has a maximum printable width of 140cm. This fabric is very similar to muslin, is super-soft and only gets softer after washing! Cotton Voile has an off-white base colour with a touch of warmth, is semi-sheer and has a matte finish. Despite the fabric’s transparency it provides strong colour reproduction when printed and has good colour show-through on the underside of the fabric. When selecting the Cotton Voile please keep in mind that some fading as a result of washing is normal for digital printing on natural fabrics. The fading often gives our natural fabrics a charming and soft ‘worn’ look. Fading can be minimized through the use of cold hand-washing and phosphate free detergent.

Cotton Voile is a lightweight, 70gsm fabric with no stretch and good drape. The open weave nature of the fabric gives it some give and ensures it is ultra-breathable. The Cotton Voile is an excellent choice for scarves, sheer shirts and blouses, summer dresses, kaftans, baby swaddles, baby clothes and light curtains. We’ve popped some inspiration pics below!

Image via Pinterest

Sample swatches of the Cotton Voile are available through our Sample Pack Order Form and can be found in our ‘All Stock Super Pack’, ‘Natural Fabrics’ and ‘For the Little Ones’ sample packs. Get in touch to find out if this fabric will be suitable for your next project!

Bold Designer Prints – Live Colorful Collection

Back in 2016 we worked with designer Elba Valerde from Live Colorful to create a range of prints for our Fabric Shop which perfectly encapsulated her fun and vibrant style. We thought the change in season made for the perfect time to revisit one of our brightest collections; the Live Colorful Collection, and hopefully inspire some creative DIY projects for the Winter months!

The Live Colorful range has been inspired by the beauty found in nature. Floral and botanic shapes have been photographed, studied and doodled, translating intricate forms into minimal, playful shapes.

Selecting a vibrant yet restricted colour palette was also essential to creating these designs. The use of primary colours, white and hot pink, give this range a carefree feel. The chosen colours paired with simplistic shapes results in a collection that is both timeless and fun, with a touch of Scandi textile flair.

The Live Colorful Collection can be used for cushion covers, tablecloths, table runners, napkins and curtains, just to name a few. Check out our DIY resources for both curtains and bean bag covers using these designs for more inspiration!

Whilst the range was originally designed with homewares in mind we’ve found this bold style of design is perfect for fashion applications as well! We’ve included some images below of similar prints to show you how they can be used in your wardrobe!

Image via Pinterest

We’d love to know what you think of the Live Colorful Collection, so get in touch!

Polyester Canvas Fabric

Canvas. You’ve definitely heard of it but what is it used for? We’ve put together an article that gives you some insight into the specific Polyester Canvas fabric that we use; covering its specs, digital printing characteristics and recommended usage! Keep reading to find out why this fabric is one of our most popular choices from our Fabric Range.

Our Polyester Canvas is a premium canvas fabric and is 100% polyester, highly durable and has a maximum printable width of 147cm.

Polyester Canvas is a plain weave fabric with a smooth and consistent texture. It has an optic white base colour ensuring high quality colour reproduction for dye-sublimation printing. This fabric is an excellent choice for designs with bold and dark colours with vibrant and rich printing results.

This heavy duty fabric is 300GSM, water resistant, easy to care for and has no stretch. Our Polyester Canvas is incredibly versatile and can be used for soft furnishings, upholstery, cushion covers, handbags, tote bags, back packs, commercial displays, wall hangings and photo mounting. This commercial grade fabric is a particularly good choice for interiors. We’ve included some examples below of the types of projects that our Polyester Canvas would be perfect for!

Sample swatches of the Polyester Canvas are available through our Sample Pack Order form on the website. Got a project in mind but not sure if this fabric is suitable? Get in touch and we can help you determine the best choice for you!

Textile Collection Wildflower

It’s that time again – our design team has been busy working to deliver new range of textile designs for our Fabric Shop that delight and inspire. Having focused solely on digital methods to create designs for our previous launch we’ve returned to hand-drawn and hand-painted motifs, texture and line for our latest range. Introducing our Wildflower Collection.

Once again we found ourselves being inspired by nature. It’s hard not to be when it still feels like Summer in Sydney. Our research began by collecting imagery of picture perfect gardens and the creatures that lie within them. These were then used to start drawing and painting interesting forms and surfaces.

From the variety of motifs drawn, a selection of watercolour elements were chosen to develop further for the range, with detail rich designs being an area of focus. We wanted to create a range of prints where the designs could work on their own as well as complement each other when used together. By choosing the unifying feature of watercolour motifs across the range we knew we could be experimental with colour and still create a balanced and harmonious collection.

The Wildflower Collection plays with primary colours throughout the designs, with warm and cool variations of reds, yellows and blues being seen throughout. This balancing of undertones and vibrant colours results in a fun range of designs perfect for those who love to make a statement by mixing and matching bold prints together. We’ve included some reference imagery below that show not only designs comparable to those in this collection, but also those that celebrate the art of clashing prints.

image via Pinterest

The Wildflower Collection is full of dramatic colours, textural hand-drawn elements and motifs that feel both ‘naughty and nice’. Whilst ‘Viper Sun’ and ‘Tea Party’ are best suited for fashion rather than homewares, ‘Eclipse’ and ‘Zephyr’ can definitely work well for both. We’d love to know what sort of applications you think these designs would be perfect for – so get in touch! Designs are available in our Fabric Shop now.

Waratah Fabric

Lately on the blog we’ve focused on writing about any new fabrics for printing we’ve introduced to the Digital Fabrics range. Whilst we’ll continue to write these fabric introductions, you can also expect us to write up on some of our old favourites, to help keep you familiar with our complete Fabric Range for printing and make the right selection for your next textile project!

This time we’re brushing up on a long standing Digital Fabrics favourite – Waratah! Our Waratah is a 100% polyester fabric which is highly durable, easy to care for and has a printable width of 147cm.

It is a twill weave, medium weight fabric with a bright white base and slight sheen to its surface. Waratah’s composition and finish provides excellent colour reproduction when printing, making it perfect for designs with vibrant and deep colours!

Waratah fabric is 200 GSM and has minimum stretch meaning it holds its shape very well. This makes Waratah fabric an ideal for homewares applications such as cushion covers, tablecloths and wall hangings, as well as marketing collateral such as banners and signage. We think it’s such a great choice for interiors we’ve chosen Waratah as the standard choice for Digital Fabric’s Custom Cushion Cover Service!

Interested in Sample swatches of Waratah fabric are available through our Sample Pack Order Form. Get in touch to find out if this fabric suits your upcoming project!

How To: Create a Mirror Repeat using our Online Uploader

Designing abstract textural prints may seem like a challenge, but by selecting the Mirror Repeat Feature when using our Online Uploader, your designs can be taken to the next level with minimal fuss when it comes to repeating your design. Here’s an easy to follow tutorial put together by one of our fabulous interns from 2018 – Emily!

Firstly, start out by creating your own designs and then scan them into your computer. We recommend to scan your artwork at 300dpi and in RGB colour mode.

For our artwork we decided to play around with line-work and contrasting colours to create a high energy zig-zag effect.

Open the design in Adobe Photoshop. It’s at this stage that you can edit your artwork if it requires any tweaks, such as changing the colours or removing / cleaning up elements. Once you are happy with your artwork use the crop tool to crop your design into a rectangular tile.

Check the size of your image by selecting ‘Image’ > ‘Image Size’ from the menu bar in the top-left of your screen. If the dpi of your image is larger than 300, please reduce it to 300dpi. If the dpi of your image is less than 300 you can keep it at this size. Please note we recommend artwork for digital printing to have a dpi of at least 150 for best results when printing onto fabric.

Save the tile as a JPEG so that it is compatible with the Online Uploader.

Next head to our website! The Online Uploader is available either clicking here or by copying & pasting this link: www.digitalfabrics.com.au/custom-fabric into your browser. Use the Online Uploader to upload your design. After the file has loaded you should see it in the fabric preview window.

To the right of the fabric preview window you will see a list of options, including any changes that need to be made to your artwork size as well as the type of ‘repeat’ required for your design. When first uploaded your artwork will always be shown using a ‘full drop’ repeat. Select the ‘mirror repeat’ option. This will reflect your design tile’s edges when placed next to each other, resulting in a seamless repeat pattern of your textured artwork.

Congratulations! You now have a repeat design all set to be printed on the fabric of your choice and applied to any project you can imagine!

Textile Collection Flora Folk

We had so much fun creating our last collection we thought we’d release another range of beautiful fabric prints dedicated to florals. This time round we completely changed our creative process to deliver fabric prints that felt entirely different to the soft, inky designs of the Palamporia Collection. Introducing our new Folk Flora range, which is available now in our Fabric Shop.

To make sure we were creating floral motifs that felt new we put the watercolours away! This time we wanted to focus on the textures and line work that could be achieved by working digitally only. This does unfortunately mean that we don’t have any gorgeous process illustrations to share, however we think the end results are stunning enough!

We began by collecting images of flowers to draw from, as well as endless scans and photographs we’d gathered of interesting textures. We drew our floral motifs digitally, giving them crisp sharp lines and overtly simplified shapes reminiscent of retro floral forms.

We then began to play with our gallery of photographs and scans. These images were manipulated, distorted and layered to come up with interesting designs to use to fill our floral motifs. Some designs, such as ‘Kaleidoscope Garden’, layer several of these digital textures to create a really rich patchwork, whilst others like ‘Stormy Blossom’ choose to showcase just one gorgeous texture. The strictly digital process of drawing, cutting and collaging resulted in designs that had a vintage flair, so accordingly we chose a warm colour palette that reflected this outcome.

With so many of our prints starting with hand-drawn elements it was refreshing to try a whole new process with a different set of restrictions and possibilities. The Folk Flora Collection creates retro feeling designs for the digital age, and can work for both fashion and interiors applications.

We’d love to know what sort of project you think this range would be perfect for – so get in touch! Designs are available in our Fabric Shop now.

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Tag Archives: diy with digital fabrics

Cotton Drill Fabric

Custom Fabric Printing for Summer Beach Essentials

Cotton Linen Fabric

New Cotton Voile Fabric

Bold Designer Prints – Live Colorful Collection

Polyester Canvas Fabric

Textile Collection Wildflower

Waratah Fabric

How To: Create a Mirror Repeat using our Online Uploader

Textile Collection Flora Folk

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