All this part is super straightforward, as is the upload page itself.

If you get turned around just to back to the main Spoonflower page and that dang bar should be right there. This seems basic but I lose my place super easily on this site for some reason. Go to Design on the top bar, then Upload. That looks okay! Let’s save as a PNG (my personal preference, do your thing, but make sure you read Spoonflower’s posts on preparing an image and resolution) and navigate over to Spoonflower where you already have an account, possibly filled with patterns you keep almost getting but keep feeling anxious about. It’s only basic tiling, but you can draw and move and work wrapping from edge to edge like a sphere and it’s basically wizard magic. Krita has an option under “View” that is called “ Wrap Around Mode” you can also just press “W” because Krita is awesome. I was mostly into this pattern because I knew I could replicate that screentone feel thanks to one of Krita’s brushes. I just went with five because the wide spacing between them means I can repeat an individual flower with only slight tilt variations and the eye won’t be like “TOO REPEATY.” Since I don’t want to straight copy the pattern, I took what I learned from tracing and built my own floral elements. I traced what I could see and sort of projected what the lines would do, to get a feel for the pattern.

I wasn’t able to get a super clear shot of it, but enough to get an idea of the spacing and the pattern of the individual floral elements.

I am going to make a version of the print in Trudy’s dress from episode 14 of season one of Miami Vice, because of course I am. Even if you have another preferred drawing program or process, bringing your file, or your elements, into Krita to help visualise how a design repeats is invaluable. It’s free, it handles a million kinds of files, and it’s got some great tools for tiled pattern design. After I got a second round of swatches, some folks were asking about the process of making a pattern for Spoonflower, and since it’s intimidating but super easy, let’s go over the process of creating a design and uploading it to Spoonflower.īefore anything, my personal recommendation for pattern design is Krita. I really love pattern design and it was really gratifying to end up with physical items in the form of fabric swatches. You can learn a little about it and download a PDF of my faves in this public Patreon post, or check out the fabrics that are available here. After I did the Pattern January challenge on Instagram, I turned a lot of those patterns into fabric at Spoonflower.

Krita patterns download