Custom, Print-on-Demand fabric and the Globe Pincushion
Hello. Hello. Thump. Thump. Is this thing working?
Hi. It’s me, tech support (husband). Doing a guest blog for Sherralyn. I haven’t blogged here since early 2009. And that was just part of trying to get he blog software set up.
This time I’m going to blog about the globe pincushion that has been available as a free download on this site for some time and about a new version of that pattern.
A key aspect of the original pattern was printing the pattern on to cloth using an ink jet printer. Running a piece of cloth through an ink jet is not something everyone is comfortable with. One reader wrote Sherralyn that “my husband would have kittens if I did that”. But Sherralyn and I have been doing it for some time and I have yet to have kittens myself so we know that not all husbands necessarily have kittens if cloth is run through an ink jet printer. That’s just not the way cats, husbands or ink jet printers work. There are commercially available printable fabrics that work well and Sherralyn’s patterns have instructions for a DIY approach that has also worked for us. We use the DIY technique not only for the globe pincushion but for some of the doll patterns.
Nevertheless, we recognize that not every one is willing to give this technique a try. And, we have come across a solution! There are online services that will custom print on fabric for you. We have been trying out a site called Spoonflower that will print patterns that we have uploaded onto 8”x8” swatches, fat quarters, or yards of fabric. A swatch runs about $5 plus shipping. The cost of larger quantities varies with the type of fabric selected. Sherralyn has been very impressed with the quality of the Kona cotton fabric that we have ordered from them. The grain is unusually square and the colors are bright. On the other hand, the cost per yard is, as you would expect for custom, print-on-demand fabric, relatively high. And, delivery times can run a couple of weeks. But you may consider these disadvantages a small price to pay to avoid kittens.
If you want to give this a try, we have updated the original pincushion instructions slightly to accommodate the print-on-demand fabric here. And a link to the globe pincushion fabric pattern on Spoonflower is here.
