An inquiry as to the acquisition of custom-designed textiles

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

I am a lurker, but here I am posting with a question of my own (so selfish ;;;)

While I still love Elegant Gothic Fashion with all my heart, I have recently found it necessary to retreat into design rather than the wearing of pretty things. An idea came to me to design work-type clothing with slight EGL influence, and while I would love to get the project started, I cannot figure out how to go about printing up my own fabric design. The sketch in particular that is giving me trouble:





Does anyone know of a resource that will custom-print fabric for me, or if there is some way I would be able to print it myself? ;;;; Thank you!

Comments

[clarice.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think it's that hard to get your own fabric printed... you just have to buy reams and reams and reams of it upfront. So, it wouldn't really be feasible for you unless you truly wanted to go into business and start selling a lot of your designs.

Re:

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

You're right, buying large amounts of it like that would probably be impractical at this point ;;;

But it is definitely something to keep in mind, just in case I do end up making lots of this particular design. So thank you, my fears of it being impossible are put to rest!

[skwerlie.livejournal.com]

As for doing it yourself, that looks like the kind of thing that *might* be possible with stamping or maybe doing your own screenprinting if you only want to make one or two for personal use. Any more than that and it'd be too tedious, and the paint may come off, I've never tried to give a fabric an all-over pattern before (though I'm considering it for something).

*shrug*

Re:

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

I never even thought of stamping ^^;;;; Thank you for pointing that out to me as a possible method!

[caliginous.livejournal.com]

anything can be silkscreened, and lots of colleges have facilities for it. You can also stencil things easily, and the great thing about that is that you can do it when the garment is finished, so your stripes will always be straight regardless of the grain of the fabric.

Re:

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

Excellent! ^^ The silkscreening sounds like a very easy way to do it...now to check into the costs and see which of the local colleges has the facilities. Thank you so much!

[sorrowsdemise.livejournal.com]

I started doing the same thing, just because I wanted to be able to express myself at work, but still have a bit of a professional look. What I did was take a typical button shirt pattern, added ruffles or lace to it, basically just altering the pattern a bit.

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

^^ Haha, another elegant entrepeneur! Currently my job doesn't really require me to dress up -- I do publicity, some design, and lighting for a metal band -- but Loli business clothes, I think, have that extra edge of being stylish-whimsical over just a pair of pants and a T-shirt. And of course, there are always people who might like my designs and really need professional clothing!

[sorrowsdemise.livejournal.com]

Well if you do start anything up let me know, I would be interested in buying. I love round collars, but I hate to make them, I think last night was my final straw with fiddling with those. hehe. I love making the clothes too, I love the finished product, all my friends like them. They make jokes, i have doll like hair, doll like apartment, and doll like clothes. I had a coworker once tell me she just wanted to put me on a shelf for display. hehe.

[ashkaztra.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you could do that with stamping. I have a apron with bats on it that I made from a red fabric, black fabric paint and some big potatoes.

Re:

[littlemisseva.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that does sound adorable! I think I will use the stamping for at least a prototype version, just to make sure that it doesn't look entirely ridiculous.

Re:

[ashkaztra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, trying things out before you make the real thing is a good idea. Anyway, as I said before, potatoes makes good and easily disposable stamps.