Sprout Tester

images from Spoonflower website

This is not the first 'cut and sew' trial Spoonflower has done. It's just the first one they've taken to market. 

And like so many things in life, follow the damn directions.

See, it's all there.

If you are a chronic designer on Spoonflower, you probably have a deep inventory of designs you've come up with, but haven't make a swatch to proof them so you can sell them. Like the free swatch days, I pile the test designs on the tester items, get some more bang for my buck.

The downside of this beta was: the early access to the process was not free. It was discounted, but I paid for this.

And it is just as prone to having to wait for printing to catch up with a big influx of orders as any other busy time for Spoonflower. Order went in on October 3rd, and I don't have it yet (although I should soon, according to my order records).

Spoonflower is many things, but one thing supreme: their customer service is redonkulously great. I knew there was a mixup when I emailed a question and did not get a response within the day (I misentered my email! d'oh!).

I've almost bought the Sidekick sling bag pattern on several occasions, I've co-taught a workshop on making it, so it figured that this was finally the time to put words into actions. I honestly think it's too big, but I can trim it down.

Plus it has three potential design choices. Theme Bag!

See those yellow squares around the fabric images? That means you've selected those. This is where I just could not figure out how to select them.

This is what a beta is. People like me stumble over the dumb stuff.

The big difference between this and previous cut and sew trials is the ability to move the design within the pattern template. Example One above.

And Example Two

Or I can make sure that the big red moon does not end up ....in the headlight position.

You do get preprogrammed choices for fabrics, but a nice range and nothing that wouldn't work for the design.

When the pattern/bag arrives, I'll post again on how it turns out.

In the meantime, more Craftyhoppingblogfun