How Spoonflower Works - The Mad Craft Duckie Sudio

How Spoonflower Is Different From Traditional Fabric Stores

Spoonflower is a unique fabric and home design store. Spoonflower connects thousands of independent designers with shoppers, but there is a lot of misinformation out there. Here’s the straight scoop on how Spoonflower works and what to expect from fabrics, home goods, and wallpaper printed by Spoonflower.

Printed and sewn to order

Unlike traditional fabric stores, thousands of yards of fabric or wallpaper aren’t printed ahead of time to risk becoming deadstock or cluttering up landfills. Spoonflower fabrics and wallpaper are printed after you order them, saving water and preventing waste. Home goods are sewn on demand as well, not stamped on to mass manufactured items.

Yes, you can get continuous yardage

While swatches and fat quarters are individually cut, if you order multiple yards of fabric, it does come as continuous yardage as far as the bolt of raw fabric allows. If you order a large quantity (usually over 10 to 15 yards) that needs to be split, Spoonflower will contact you and ask how you would like the yardage split.

Selvage isn’t counted in measurements but the fabric is sometimes preshrunk

There is a wide (2″ to 3″) border on either side of printed fabrics where the fabric was held by the machinery. This wide white border is NOT counted in the fabric width. Unfortunately, some spread the lie that you pay for less than you order but that just isn’t true. The only time your fabric would be less than expected is if it preshrunk.

Heat is part of the printing process. As such, there are times when fabrics may shrink slightly. You can estimate potential shrinkage by checking the fabric type details page with Spoonflower to see shrinkage ratings. I rarely see more than 1″ in shrinkage in any direction on my personal orders and even that is rare.

Ecofriendly inks

Spoonflower uses durable, water-based, non-toxic pigments in printing. While any fabric will fade with abusive use, we have found Spoonflower fabrics stand up well in our hands-on testing over time. In fact, some of our highest demand designs are for medical professionals who put scrub caps through vicous washing cycles and the prints last well.

Designers get a commission

We don’t work for Spoonflower, nor can we see your order status. Designers get a small comission (10% to 15% of your price before taxes and shipping) when you place an order. The only thing designers can see is that a specific design sold, the quantity, the date, the fabric type, the sale amount and your username (if you have one).

A note on color batches

Because designs are printed to order, colors might differ slightly between orders, just like yarn has color lots. Spoonflower works hard to maintain consistency but it is the nature of this type of printing so we always recommend buying enough for each project in one batch.