There are a number of services online that will take a digital design and print small lengths of fabric. Unlike the big print houses they are aimed at very small runs and do not have expensive set up costs or minimum runs that make it prohibitive for a studio based textile practitioner to use.
Many people know of Spoonflower and Karma Kraft but did you know about Fabric on Demand? Each service offers a slightly different product and it is sometimes hard to compare what is what.
Kim of True Up performed a Digital Fabric Printing Experiment and sent digital files to each and compared the printed results.
You will find a comprehensive illustrated comparison of print colour and quality on her blog alongside a very useful spreadsheet of the results of her research which Kim is giving away as PDF file on her website
Thanks for this (link is working now) – I have used Spoonflower happily but not come across the others, useful to know if they offer different fabrics.
Hi Niki
the link was working but I just went to her site – all her links to About this site, advertise, archives, best of and sources guides all lead to a message that reads the file can not be found this includes her contact page and comment – otherwise I would have wrtitten to her – I am sure she will notice as only her front page is standing.
Anyway the front door to true up is http://www.trueup.net/
I am sure it will be fixed soon
hi,
the link's not working 🙁
Thanks for this link. I have heard of these but always wondered whether they are really any good – now I have a reference!