I had designed some galaxy photo-print fabric last year on Spoonflower, ordered some swatches, and then sort of forgot about them. I made a silk tank top from one of the swatches, but didn’t do much beyond that.
Made with 1 fat quarter of my Red Star Field Galaxy design fabric, on Cotton Silk. It’s so lightweight and drapey!
A reader recently messaged me on Facebook about that galaxy-print fabric…which sent me into design overdrive! I then put together 8 more galaxy photo print fabric designs, and ordered test swatches on a variety of different fabrics to see how they printed.
I just got them in the mail today (obvs, judging by the fold lines still in them I haven’t ironed out…), and I’m thrilled with how they turned out!
The organic cotton sateen Alternate Blue Galaxy Print (above) I’m using as the backing to the skirt I had planned when I made my first round of galaxy-print fabric.
This is my Sparkle Star Field, printed on Cotton Poplin. Gorgeous as a tablecloth…but even better as a swingy skater skirt or pieced blouse! (I haven’t decided which just yet…)
Clockwise, from top left: Rainbow Star Field on basic combed cotton, Orange and Red Galaxy basic combed cotton, Purple Swirl Star Field Nebula on cotton silk, Pink and Green Burst Galaxy on organic cotton knit.
Of course the test swatches are too small to do much with; maybe I’ll make little purses or scrunchies with them. They were more to just see colors and make sure the repeat was correct.
And also my Purple Galaxy Nebula Burst fabric, which I got done on cotton silk.
I had a blast designing them all, which are originally from hi-res photos of galaxies, stars, and nebulae, completely repeating and seamless. Maybe you’d be interested in using something for your next DIY project?
See My Galaxy Print Fabric on Spoonflower
And if not, why not design your own fabric? Spoonflower offers a number of tools and how-tos to designing your own fabrics, including vector designs and making difficult repeating patterns.
Happy DIY’ing!
xoxox
Carly
This is really, really cool! Thank you for sharing. I didn’t know that a service like Spoonflower existed. It’s going to be really hard not to spend one million years playing around in photoshop now! Love the ones you made!
xo
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Those fabrics are too gorgeous. Love them all
*Senra
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Thank you, Senra! I had fun making them:-)
Carly, how on earth did you get your blacks to register so BLACK? I’m new to spoonflower and to fabric printing, and this is something I’ve been having a hard time with. Turning up the saturation doesn’t work; neither does turning up the contrast. I’m frustrated out of my mind!
Hi DS! I’m not really sure…I’ve found that depending on the fabric I’m printing on, the blacks can sometimes come out as brown and not very black. Did you create your patterns in Photoshop? In there, I played with the Levels and set it to what I wanted for each design, then uploaded to Spoonflower. I didn’t do any adjustment in the Spoonflower interface. Maybe reading the FAQ about color in Spoonflower will help a little? (http://www.spoonflower.com/help#help4b) There’s a part where they write: “Our digital printers and pigment inks often print saturated colors and true blacks lighter than you might expect. You may need to test different saturation levels or modify your design.” Which design of mine were you looking at where you mention the darkness of my blacks? I’m pretty sure that each of my galaxy prints had a bit of a different black…and some definitely didn’t come out the way I though they would…