Review: Spoonflower

May 13, 2019

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).

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!


The fabric used for the corset was printed by Spoonflower

You May Also Like…

London’s fabric district

London’s fabric district

So for my birthday this year, I planned a trip to see the Harry Potter studios finally - you can read all about that...

Danish Fabric shops

Danish Fabric shops

Se dette indlæg på dansk her. In Danish, the word for fabric is the same as the word for drugs. So I often make a joke...

Vacation & a huge fabric shop

Vacation & a huge fabric shop

So this last week I had my first vacation that didn't involve cosplaying in a looong time. I travelled to Vilnius,...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *