Have you always wanted to design your own fabric? Well now you can! Let me show you how easy it is to create print-on-demand fabric. My Fabric Design software is Inspirations’ latest exclusive offering to Inspiration dealers. Although you can learn about it here, you’ll have to purchase it from your local Inspirations dealer.
Let’s make a plaid fabric, no drawing skills needed! Open a new file in My Fabric Design software. Click on Canvas. 
Select Pattern to create a repeatable pattern.
Click on Settings and enter 4 in the height and width to set the size of the repeat. Of course, you can make this any size you’d like. Click OK.
Click on the Artwork tool and select Rectangle from the drop down menu.
Drag the cursor over the screen and draw a square a bit larger than the box on the screen (that’s the size of the repeat). To change from an outline, select Fill from the Type field in the Properties Box. Click Apply. 
Let’s draw the plaid sections. Select the Rectangle from the Artwork tool. Draw a skinny rectangle that’s longer than the blue square. Change the color of the skinny rectangle to yellow.
Select the yellow rectangle. Click on the Repeat Tool and enter 4 in Number Across and 1 in Number Down. Place .24 in Horizontal distance to space the bars. Click Apply.
Change the colors of three bars.
Select all four bars and click on Rotate Right key once.
Paste an identical set of bars. Click on the Horizontal mirror image key.
Now let’s see what the fabric looks like in the repeatable pattern. 
Click on the Preview icon to view your repeatable pattern.
Pretty fun, wouldn’t you agree?
Now let’s add some text. Click on the T icon, select a font, type in a message. Size the text to fit and move it to the top center area. Extend half of the text off the blue square to so that it fills the blue diamond. 
Click on Preview. 
Or move the text to the center of the crossed bars.
Oh my, the fun you can have. And we haven’t even explored cheater quilts yet! In a future post, I’ll show you how to make custom cheater quilts – think memory quilts, art quilts, ‘intricate’ blocks (that you never have to piece!) quilts!
The possibilities are endless, you can use sketches, scans, photographs, text and your own creativity to make fabric that you’ve been dreamed about. You can save your work and come back to it later.
To print the fabric, click on Send and you’re file will be exported to http://www.MyFabricDesigns.com There you can choose from 26 substrates – quilting cottons, knits, polys, satins, silks, you name it, you’ll find it! Your fabric will print, ship and arrive at your home in 10-14 days. Amazing!
Normally, I use fuse polymesh stabilizer to the wrong side of the design area to stabilize knit fabrics. But recently, I was working on a couple of knit skirts. The brown one, shown above, is an a-line skirt and easily slips over the hip. I used polymesh cut-away stabilizer on it with satisfactory results. The second skirt, a pretty avocado green is more fitted. I really needed to keep the stretch of the skirt so it could slip over the hip. I opted to use Piece & Stitch wash-away tear-away stabilizer instead of my usual cut-away.
Look for the mouse icon and click on it to activate the zoom feature and more. View the embedded videos by clicking the play button and enjoy.
