Tag Archives: fabric printing

Palm Springs – Fabric Design Competition

Exciting news! We have a new competition for all Textile designers out there, budding or experienced. The theme is ‘Palm Springs’. We know, fun right?

Create a fabric design for ‘interiors’ or ‘fashion’ inspired by ‘Palm Springs’ using any method you want. This could be photograph, paint, collage, sketch and could be based on colour, texture, architecture or landscape, there are no boundaries. Let your creativity GO WILD!

There will be 3 winners:

1^st Prize will receive $250 worth of custom printing on a fabric from our stock plus a 45cm x 45cm cushion on waratah with their winning design, insert included.

2^nd Prize will receive $100 worth of custom printing on a fabric plus a 45cm x 45cm cushion on waratah with their winning design, insert included.

3^rd Prize will receive $50 worth of custom printing on a fabric plus a 45cm x 45cm cushion on waratah with their winning design, insert included.

All top ten designs will receive a strike-off of their design.

How it works:

Create it. Design it. Share it! Get your friends to share it too.

Why?

The top 10 designs will be voted for by the public, so share your designs with your friends, get them voting for you!

From the Top 10, there will also be one public voted winner, this will be the design that gets the most likes and the prize will be one 45cm x 45cm cushion with their design. Yay!

The competition will open on Saturday 21st October and close on Thursday 16^th November at 9am Eastern Standard Time. All voting will close at 9am Eastern Standard Time Monday 20th November.

Top 10 will be announced on Monday 20th November on social media and will be featured on our website.

Winners will be announced on Friday 24^th November.

Rules:

Upload your design onto your Instagram account.
Add the tag: #dfpalmsprings and tag us: Digital Fabrics @digitalfabrics so we can find your entry! If you don’t use the correct hash tag we may not see your design.
We love to know the story behind the design and what inspired you so tell us everything!

All designs must be submitted by Thursday 16th November 9am Eastern Standard Time to be included in the competition.

Just a little inspiration for you to enjoy:

Terms and conditions:

This competition for Australian residents only.

Please use the correct hashtag to be included: #dfpalmsprings and tag us @digitalfabrics to ensure we can see your entry.

Only entries with the correct hashtag #dfpalmsprings will be in the running of the competition.

Unlimited entries allowed.

The team at Digital Fabrics will choose the finalists.

The winning prize can be used for one fabric type only from our stock fabric collection.

The 45cm x 45cm cushion will be printed front and back and mailed to you.

We can’t wait to see all the designs!

DF Team

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Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 4

Snippets’. Chats with Creatives. Here at Digital Fabrics we love everything print, pattern and colour and we love to know what makes designers tick. This series is all about asking some fun and different questions and learning about the inspirations and ideas behind the artist and their work. We hope to inspire others by sharing snippets of these creative stories. We gave the artists and designers featured a varied list of questions to choose from so we will learn something new from everyone involved, should be fun!

Today on Snippet’s we are talking to Gabby Malpas, an artist with a flair for painting detailed still life of Australian grown flora and fauna with a hint of what Gabby calls ‘chinoiserie.’

The Snippety Snips:

Tell us a bit about yourself and what your creative practice is, how and when you began:

I’m Chinese, I was born in NZ and adopted into a white family of 9 children making me #10. I trained as a potter in Dunedin, after Art school I started using inks and watercolour on paper – as it is very much like liquid glaze. I left NZ in 1988, lived in the UK until 2003 and arrived in Sydney later that year. I’ve been a professional artist since late 2014 but exhibited and painted the whole way through since leaving art school.

I’ve been a digital project manager in agency and corporate since around 1992 – girl’s gotta eat and pay for holidays! These days I license my work, exhibit regularly, work with clients on creative stuff and get involved in a lot of adoption and community causes.

I am still learning how not to be a dick.

Which five words best describe you?

Most can’t be repeated in public but how about: scary, mad, loyal, loud, and dependable.

How would you describe your work, and what influences your style?

My work is figurative watercolours. It has been dismissed as purely decorative but a lot of my work actually communicates my life experiences as a trans racial, Chinese adoptee. Some of the messages are a little hard to swallow – which is why I temper these with lavish and engaging imagery. I am influenced by a lot of artists and things: from Paul Klee, Matisse and Elizabeth Blackadder as European artists, to Japanese woodcuts and traditional SE , Central and West Asian imagery, textiles and ceramic designs.

What would your dream creative project look like?
Anything that gives me free rein to do what I like and I get paid for it… hang on – that’s a lot of what I do now.

Which other Australian designers, artists or creative people are you enjoying at the moment?

Well I discovered Cressida Campbell when I got here and she’s my idol but there are a heap of fabulous designers I follow on Instagram and Facebook – I appreciate artists who just do their thang and are not worried about fashion or what’s hot. Oh and I’ve loved Ken Done since 1988 when I went to Brisvegas expo.

What has been your proudest achievement to date, creative or otherwise?

There have been a few: Getting some artwork into Liberty of London in the 90s, getting into the Affordable art Fair Sydney in 2009 was the first step to getting somewhere in Oz but finally calling myself a professional artist in Dec 2014 has got to be up there after nearly 30 years of slog.

In another life what natural talent would you wish for?

It would be infinitely cool to be good at math.

If you could have your portrait painted by any artist dead or alive, who would you choose?

Not one for portraits but would love to see what Robert Crumb would do.

If you could only use one colour in your work what would it be?

PINK!

Love your Locals:

City/Town/Village where you currently reside:

Alexandria Sydney – yep, a local

Favourite spot for a bite:

Fratelli Fresh, Mitchell Road or Tuki Kanuki Erko. Fave pho place is Phd in Marrickville

Secret Inspirational spot: can I have 3?

The Asian Galleries at the AGNSW, the lotus pond in the botanic gardens and Kinokunya bookshop though I wish they’d let you sit on the step stools.

You can follow what Gabby is upto: Website, Instagram, Facebook

Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 3

Today on Snippet’s we are talking to Darren Church, graphic designer behind ‘Raw Inc’ a street design division based in Australia. Inspired by graffiti and street culture they design and create unique apparel, cushions and accessories.

The Snippety Snips:

Tell us a bit about yourself and what your creative practice is, how and when you began:

I’m currently based out in Penrith in Sydney’s lower Blue Mountains, but personally I enjoy the days out into the city and other areas I have to go, walking between stores and checking out what’s new on the streets in the graffiti scene catching up with shop owners.

How would you describe your work, and what influences your style?

I base 99% of our designs around graffiti and the classic sneaker culture, and we’re all about bold clean lines with fresh colours, using illustrations and different elements in photographs to create for that next cushion design. It’s our little niche and very different to what is out there in the industry.

We find people can relate to our different types of cushions, by bringing out what they grew up with a twist and purely for the love of the novelty of the item. We get contacted all the time by paint companies asking when are we going to do a cushion of their design.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Always finding myself sketching up new designs and redrawing artwork ready for print for clients. And always hunting around Sydney fabric stores to find that perfect fabric to match artwork being printed. Cutting and sewing up fabric for those store orders.

It does get chaotic sometimes and a little stressful but very satisfying and it’s worth it in the end to see people loving the products.

What has been your proudest achievement to date, creative or otherwise?

After many years of Managing retail stores here in Sydney and while living in the UK for 10 years, I got to the point of having enough and had to do something I enjoyed. So I studied Diploma in Graphic Design and a quick 12 month course in Screen Printing and realized I had so much to artwork and ideas I could do.

Now I have people coming up to me here in Sydney and in other states, that don’t even know me and treat me with a lot of respect. When we get emails weekly from European and US stores asking for order forms, it makes your day.

Tell us something people may not know about you

I’ve been doing graffiti since the late 80’s and I like to combine the elements and influences into my work and whilst living in the UK I studied fashion and design for 2 years. It really opens up your eyes to how things are designed and so easily produced.

Love your Locals:

City/Town/Village where you currently reside:

Sydney West

Favourite spot for a bite:

I don’t really have a favourite food spot, I like to try new things all the time and sometimes catch up with friends for lunch or drinks and talk about new projects and ideas.

Secret Inspirational spot:

I’m always out and about in the city. I like to walk around the city and look at all the different graffiti, art, stickers, advertisements and t-shirts people wear, I carry around a little sketch book and I’m always stopping and sit down somewhere doodling ideas down.

You can follow what Darren is upto: Website, Instagram, Facebook

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Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 1

Today on Snippet’s we are talking to Shyanne Clark, the swimwear and textile designer behind ‘Printsea’ a print design brand who love to spread sparkle and magic and inspire others to do the same.

The Snippety Snips:

Tell us a bit about yourself and what your creative practice is, how and when you began:

I’ve been a textile fabric designer for the past 5 years. My style is very mermaidy and I love tropical florals, so my business PRINTSEA has naturally progressed to helping bikini designers find their signature style and launch beautiful labels.

I am such a cheerleader for people doing what they truly love, the things that make them all sparkly inside. I was always that kid that didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t fit in one of the boxes. I think it’s because I didn’t know this job existed or how all my talents could come together to be something. I adore what I do so much and its always growing and changing me. I feel so grateful that I listened to my heart and followed its windy path, you learn so much along the way and I would love that for everyone. I get giddy just thinking about it.

At the moment I’m creating a signature range of beautiful hand designed, high vibrational pieces. There is such magic in colour and creativity. My hope is that each piece will add a little extra sparkle to your day and that owning a piece will feel like a precious treasure that brings you many heart swelling, quiet smiles and inspires your soul.

What would your dream creative project look like?

I’ve actually got a bit of a fascination with creating a print that would cover a whole aeroplane. Could you imagine a giant bunch of gorgeous flowers flying through the sky. Instant happiness I reckon. I wonder if Richard Branson would let me print wrap a Virgin plane for fun?

In another life what natural talent would you wish for?

I’m pretty much tone deaf, sometimes I’ll sing + scare myself with how out of tune I am. I have always admired people that can make your heart swell with emotion from their singing voice. I’ve secretly wished that I could do this, but in saying that, I wouldn’t want to trade my talent of drawing flowers. Can I have two natural talents?

Which part of the creative process is your favourite and why?

I absolutely love the moment when the inspiration strikes + your imagination goes all bright + sparkly. You can’t wait to birth this creation that’s swirling around inside. It’s just such a rush of ecstatic excitement. I love that part. The finished piece is pretty amazing too, but the journey is the best.

Which other Australian designers, artists or creative people are you enjoying at the moment?

I adore Annie Everingham. Her paintings evoke so much feeling. They are so happy and beautiful. I could stare at their gorgeousness for hours.

Love your Locals:

City/Town/Village where you currently reside:

I live on the beautiful Sunshine Coast, some people say, it’s like what Byron Bay was 20 years ago.

Favourite spot for a bite:

There is a gorgeous cafe at Rosemount called ‘GURU Life.’ The brother sister team roast their own beans + it truly is enlightenment in every cup, they have delicious raw treats and the staff are super friendly.

Secret Inspirational spot:

Well if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret! … I actually adore the Noosa National Park, it’s a stunning feast for your eyes and soul (and a good workout if you walk all 8kms.) On a great day you’ll see turtles, whales + koalas.

Feeling inspired by Printsea to start a swimwear brand? You can buy her E book here. AND she is currently running a promo where you can purchase 1 print and get one for free with the code: PRINTME until August 17^th, then you can print it onto lycra here at Digital Fabrics and start YOUR creative journey.

You can follow what Printsea is upto: Website, Instagram, Facebook.

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Colourful Bunch by Sharon Wilson

Not going to lie it’s very nice getting sweet notes of appreciation from our customers, but more than anything we love receiving photos of makes and completed projects. We just love seeing what fabrics that we have printed has become. Sharon Wilson surprised us recently with images of her amazing colourful creations, box pleated skirt & boxer shorts, she used her photo to create this beautiful floral fabric. Her honest feedback and tips and tricks on working with Aerocorp fabric are truly appreciated and we are sure will be really helpful and inspiring to other sewers. Here is what Sharon wrote:

About 7 years ago I took a digital photo of this colourful bunch of flowers in Switzerland. After seeing what Digital Fabrics could offer with their range of fabric types, I couldn’t wait to order the Aerocorp fabric and make a knee length box pleated skirt with waist yoke. It turned out beautifully and there was even enough remnant to make a pair of boxer shorts .

I found the Aerocorp not difficult to work with. As the website said, it did have a soft handle and cotton look and feel, however it was resilient, as 100% polyester is, but with a good press, it is easy to tame into place or make a crisp line where necessary.
Aerocorp fabric has a tendency to unravel immediately after being cut. So don’t over handle it, and make sure that raw edges are tamed as soon as possible.
The skirt has a lovely drape and swing to it.
I probably would not make a top out of it unless it was for a cooler climate and a dressier look.
If the print is very busy (as this one was) you could even possibly get away with not ironing it – great for traveling.

The fabric order delivery was on time and well packed. Inside was also a sample pack which I really appreciated because sewers really need to feel a fabric to gain good judgement on what to use. I would definitely recommend this service and am tempted to order again some time in future.

If you are like Sharon have a creative project in mind and would like to print your own fabric, you can upload your design and start creating right away here.

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GIVEAWAY! Win Halloween Print Fabrics/Leggings

WIN! Halloween is around the corner and we want to celebrate with this week’s giveaway! Digital Fabrics prints all sorts of designs on fabric so we wanted to celebrate with Halloween print fabrics and 2 lucky winners will get 1m! OR we will print the Halloween print on matt lycra with leggings shape so the winner only needs to cut and create it.

You probably have several ideas in mind but maybe you don’t know where to start as you never designed a print. Digital Fabrics helps you bring your creative ideas to life and this week we used Picmonkey to make it happen.

The Halloween print designs were created by Jocelina Paixão Fortes, the creative behind the sewing & travel channel Pink Chocolate Break and webshop Paixão Fortes. She created these fun & spooky prints with Picmonkey.

“Picmonkey is a great tool to create unique designs with as they have custom layers and visuals for every festive occasion from Halloween to Valentine’s Day. I used the edit option and choose the Halloween prints available and pasted it on a white canvas.”

Now join us on Facebook & Instagram and win 2m of Halloween Print fabrics! The winner will be announced on Wednesday!

If you don’t win, don’t worry as these Halloween print fabric designs will be available in the DF fabric shop for purchase.

Good luck!

How to prepare a layout legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

Garment making and production can be daunting and a complicated process especially placement or engineered printing. A lot of time and effort goes into research and understanding where to start. We have put together tutorials on how to design, work with and prepare legging pattern for digital placement fabric printing. For this tutorial you need to be proficient in Illustrator or at least have basic knowlage. Our tutorial is based on industry standards. This technic can be applied to printing other products such as bikinis, t-shirts, singlets , dresses etc.

How to prepare a layout/mark up legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

Once you’ve completed the steps in the tutorial ‘How to use legging pattern in Photoshop’ You may want to print more than 1 design or more than 1 size, the most economic way to do this is to create a mark up/placement layout to have printed.

The following are instructions on how to set up in Photoshop, but could easily be done in Illustrator.

Start off by renaming the pattern layers to insure that you always have a pair of leggings.

If you are only wanting the same size with different designs you can just Duplicate the leg layers. If you’d like to bring in different sizes you will need to repeat the steps in ‘How to use legging pattern in Photoshop’

In this tutorial we will be using the same size 10 but printing in new designs.

On the same artboard move files to the left hand side. you will notice that you can only comfortable fit 1 pair within the 147cm width with the current orientation; however there is a lot of wastage as illustrator below.

Like a Jigsaw puzzle you will now need to start moving the patterns, you will need to make sure that you keep in mind that your grain line is parallel to the selvage. To do this, select the leg you’d like to rotate (select both layers) press Ctrl+t to open up the transform tool and while holding down shift rotate the image 360′ and make sure to move the pattern piece as close as possible to other leg (zoom in to make sure it is not overlapping)

You can now start bringing in the other size 10 designs and play around with the layout. It’s best that you make the art board slightly longer than needed and once you’ve set up all the designs crop the excess.

Make sure you zoom in and double check that you haven’t overlapped any areas, when you are happy with the layout save as a JPG, TIFF or PDF.

You’re now on your way to have custom printed fabric which you will be able to make into comfy leggings.

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Design your own leggings – How to prepare legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

Garment making and production can be daunting and a complicated process especially placement or engineered printing. A lot of time and effort goes into research and understanding where to start. We have put together tutorials on how to design, work with and prepare legging pattern for digital placement fabric printing. For this tutorial you need to be proficient in Photoshop and Illustrator or at least have basic knowlage. Our tutorial is based on industry standards. This technic can be applied to printing other products such as bikinis, t-shirts, singlets , dresses etc.

How to prepare legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

Open the PDF file in Illustrator. You can purchase our digital leggings pattern on our website or use your own.

Copy and paste the size you would like to use within the same file, we have selected size 10.

Delete all details and notches within the pattern piece and select the pattern shape and fill in black.

while legging is selected copy and take note on the sizing.

Open Photoshop and select a new artboard, keep the pixels and resolution the same, just make sure you’ve selected RGB color mode. Click OK and Paste pattern piece as a smart object, click enter to place.

Double check that the sizing is correct by selecting Image>image size, in this case it is only a few points off which will be fine.

Next you’ll need to increase your artboard size to fit the other leg, change the width of your artboard to the width of the fabric you’d like to use and select the anchor points to extend from corner.

Copy Layer and while selected transform (Ctrl+t), while still selected right click on top of the layer and select Flip Horizontally, you know have a pair.

With both layers selected you will need to select transform again (ctrl+t) and while select cover over to rotate, when rotating make sure you hold down shift to make sure it rotates correctly.

Copy and paste the design you would like on your leggings and place layer on top of the one of the pattern legs.

Right click on the design layer and in the drop down menu select create clipping mask.

Repeat for other leg

Group all layers and centre.

Your file is now ready to print!

Soon you’ll have your printed fabric which you’ll be able to whip up into these comfy leggings

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DIY Bean Bag | DIY with Digital Fabrics

Elba from Live Colorful created another colorful & creative DIY tutorial: a DIY Bean Bag. For this she used the Cheery fabric she designed and which is available in our fabric shop. Did you know that printing fabrics with us is super easy? Create your design, Upload and pay, Receive your fabric!

From DIY clothes to DIY Home Decor, our mission at Digital Fabrics is to help you to bring your creativity and your amazing ideas to life!

Elba got the inspiration for her DIY project from Pinterest, but added some fun curves to make it look more organic.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

2 meters of heavyweight fabric. Waratah drill (147 cm wide). Design: Cheery.
2 packs of bean bag chair refill (100 Liter refill bags)
Sewing machine
Thread
Scissors
Pins

DIY Maxi Dress| DIY with Digital Fabrics

A maxi dress is a wardrobe staple that every woman needs. It’s feminine, easy to wear and DIY.

Ovoke shows us how you can DIY a maxi dress with Digital Fabrics. Our mission at Digital Fabrics is to help you to bring your creativity our amazing ideas to life! Shop this and more fabrics in our Fabric Shop

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Tag Archives: fabric printing

Palm Springs – Fabric Design Competition

Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 4

Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 3

Snippets: Chats With Creatives – Series 1, Snippet 1

Colourful Bunch by Sharon Wilson

GIVEAWAY! Win Halloween Print Fabrics/Leggings

How to prepare a layout legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

Design your own leggings – How to prepare legging pattern for fabric printing in Photoshop

DIY Bean Bag | DIY with Digital Fabrics

MATERIALS NEEDED:

DIY Maxi Dress| DIY with Digital Fabrics

MATERIALS NEEDED:

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