Another Bento Tee from me, this time in custom printed fabric!
My Fabric Designs, which sells custom printed fabric, reached out to me to see if I would be interested in trying their services. I've never tried custom printed fabric, so I was curious and took them up on their offer. My Fabric Designs provided me the fabric for free, but all opinions about the fabric and the process are my own.
At My Fabric Designs, users can choose from any design in the curated collection or create and upload their own design to be printed on their choice of 26 fabrics, ranging from woven cotton to performance jersey.
Since I am inexperienced with creating fabric designs and don't really have drawing/graphic design skills, I opted to choose from the existing designs in their collection this time. There is a large and growing range of designs uploaded by various users, from novelty prints to geometrics to florals.
I do think it would be fairly easy to create your own design, though, and My Fabric Designs has several videos walking you through the process. You can upload your own images or use some from their library to create your own repeating pattern. Maybe I'll try my hand at designing my own print next time!
The process of choosing a design is fun- you can search by design category or by designer (or by category within a designer's catalog). Once you click on a design, you get a preview of the design on one yard of your chosen fabric substrate (since the substrates vary in width). You can get a sense of the scale and adjust it to suit your needs. After settling on a fabric and design, you just add it to your cart and complete your purchase.
I do wish there was a way to "favorite" certain designs and/or designers, because unless I opened it in a separate tab in my browser, I often found it difficult to go back and find a design I liked once I had clicked away.
This time, I chose two fabrics. I will write about the second fabric in a future post. For the Bento Tee in today's post, I chose the Sun Burst Stripes Garnet and White by khaus on interlock blend/cotton slinky knit, which is 94% cotton, 6% spandex. It's 48" wide, although, as I discovered after measuring the piece I was sent, the length was almost 1/2 yard short of what I had ordered, which was a little bit frustrating. I followed up with My Fabric Designs, though, and they handled my issue quickly. Turns out the heat press, used to set the ink, was set too high and shrunk the fabric. They fixed the problem and apologized, which is good customer service in my mind.
The fabric itself is lovely, though. I was happy with the quality of the fabric substrate. Soft, thick, squishy, great recovery, presses well. The edges curl ever so slightly, but not bad at all. The printing looks as I expected it to, size-wise, and it's pretty true to the maroon-y red I expected. It might be a little bit less vibrant than I expected, but it's still quite nice. If you were planning to use it for a garment with a lot of negative ease, be warned that as it stretches, more of the white fabric underneath shows.
So, back to my Liesel + Co Bento Tee. You've seen me write about this pattern before: a great boxy tee with cuffs. I figured, with the large scale of this print, it was the perfect choice. Not a lot of seam lines to break up the pattern! I went with the somewhat cropped version of the Bento Tee, without the in-seam pockets. I'm pretty delighted with the final outcome! I love how it pairs with jeans or with these slouchy pants (my Named Alexandria trousers).
Giveaway: I have a $25 coupon code for My Fabric Designs to give away. For a chance to win the coupon, please comment on this post by 11:59 pm EST on February 10 (note: I will need to reach out to the winner via email, so anonymous comments won't be entered into the giveaway): Have you ever designed your own fabric or used custom printed fabric?
*Update: the giveaway is now closed; thanks for your entries!*
*Update: the giveaway is now closed; thanks for your entries!*
If you're curious about other sewing bloggers' experiences with My Fabric Designs, have a look at SunnyGal Studio, Rolling in Cloth and SewsnBows!
