Forks ‘n’ Spoons on Fabric

The test swatch (aka “pattern strike”) arrived from Spoonflower!

To make it, I drew a dining-themed illustration of forks and spoons and then made an overlapping pattern of them using Adobe Illustrator. This is destined for the seats of our dining room chairs, so I ordered the sample (30″ x 18″) to be printed on a tough canvas with a tight weave. I had my doubts about whether the black would print dark enough, so I was prepared to be disappointed as I opened the package…

I was thrilled to see that the colors were dark and true. Also, that there were no breaks or pesky white lines running through the pattern. It had taken me hours of testing in Illustrator and Photoshop before finding a workaround solution to the “white lines” issue produced when exporting a pattern tile from Illustrator. “Just design in Photoshop” suggested the Spoonflower Customer Service rep. But I love the Pattern Maker tool in Illustrator, and Illustrator’s Pen tool, and the Pen tool in Illustrator is f-opeless (effing hopeless) ‘cuz Photoshop was not designed as a vector tool. Yada yada yada.) I persevered, using a combination of both programs, and it paid off.

Is there anything more satisfying than seeing your work produced in a tangible format, like fabric?

P.S. This is the sequel to the post on Mad Men inspired patterns.