I have been wanting to cosplay Rapunzel for many years, but the fact that I couldn’t find the exact right fabric for it was holding me back. I really wanted something in a flowery pattern similar to it, but I just couldn’t find anything. I considered painting the pattern on, but I was afraid it wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it, so I put the idea on the shelf. I kept coming back to it, though. And then I discovered that Spoonflower now has a printing center in Berlin, which would mean no outside-EU shipping and import fees.

I decided to design my own fabric and finally make Rapunzel exactly how I wanted her to be.

Ordering and delivery

I set forth with designing the pattern. I’m a multimediadesigner by profession, so I am somewhat experienced with working with vector graphics etc, and I made one section of the pattern and then turned it into a tile that I could use as a pattern to repeat and get the size and pattern I wanted. This worked out great, until I discovered that Spoonflower only allows jpegs.

Alright, I exported the image as a jpg. What I didn’t notice was the 1mm black line on two sides of the tile. Urgh.

When you upload the files on Spoonflower, there’s a small preview and you can adjust how big the image should be/how much it should repeat. In the preview, it looked fine, no black lines, so I thought all was well and completed my order.

Almost a month passed, since I was unlucky to order while it was busy, and then my fabric arrived. I was almost in tears. Both the skirt and the top had black lines (I had used the same file, just recoloured).

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I contacted customer support, and after some back and forth, we discovered that the error was my own files. I was expecting to have to pay the 60 euro for a second order, but to my surprise, they actually gave me a voucher to make a new order of the same amount. This was above and beyond customer service in my opinion, since it was my own fault.

So, after fixing the files, I sent them in again, and after about 3 weeks, I got the new fabrics, which were just perfect.

The fabric itself

I ordered the fabric called “Organic Cotton Sateen Ultra Fabric”

It’s a soft cotton with a very smooth surface – it’s not really shiny, but it’s very fine and feels and looks high quality. It was a little bit stiff at first, but washing it helped a lot.

The print is not 100% as crisp as it was on screen, but it’s very close – and definitely has the look I wanted. The colour is also very close to what I had on my screen, so I feel like I got exactly what I paid for and expected.

I also as a bonus ordered a 3rd fabric with someone elses design on my 2nd order, and for that one, I ordered a jersey quality. I think it’ll be good for leggings, but I will update the review on that once I get around to working with it!