Best Dressed Lion: Custom Printed Fabric

Hey there!

Today I wanted to talk about Custom Fabric, specifically Custom Printed Fabric. I love custom fabric groups on Facebook and have my favorites linked on the right side of my blog. I ran into a creative hindrance. I wanted something for a race. I searched through all the groups and nothing was inspiring. I did have someone from a fabric group reach out and try to have me join their group so I could buy something from them. Honestly, I just don’t like the quality of their fabric. There also are other people that have fabric groups and while I was looking for a print, found the majority of the shop's files on Shutterstock. I was a bit perturbed. I thought the person legitimately designed these prints. Ok maybe I am just naïve. One of the downsides of custom fabric groups is that the TAT can be a few months since it is printed in China. Then if the round falls over CNY, it is much longer.

I resorted to posting in a general group and again, nothing. A shop owner that I had purchased from before reached out and said that she could have something custom printed if I had a file. We chatted a bit and understood what she was explaining. So I purchased a file on Shutterstock and emailed it to her. She sent an invoice and off we went! I received the fabric in under two weeks. I then sent it to Bolder for skirts and tops. This was for our first Run for the Turtles. I then repeated it for Universal’s Mardi Gras and a few other designs.

Last year she referred me to the company that she used for printing. So I set up an account and started having them print my fabric directly.

Here is how I created our skirts for the 2023 Margaritaville Race. I found this file on Shutterstock and purchased it. Learning that the optimum size is 2400x2400 px. I resized the file directly in Shutterstock and downloaded the jpg.

Next, you will want to go to Raspberry Creek Fabrics and create an account. Then you will go to the custom printing tab and upload your jpg. Please make sure to check off any required boxes. You should check the scale by viewing Full Width. The DPI must be 300 for the print to be clear and not fuzzy.

Then on the right side, you will want to choose your fabric type. Scroll down to Swim Knit.

You should notice that Raspberry Creek defaults to HALF YARD increments, so if you need 1 yard of fabric for your Bolder skirt, please make sure that you 2 to your cart. If you are a larger size and need say 1.5 yards, change the amount in your cart to 3. That extra little bit could be used to make a raglan tank with a mesh body. You can either check out after your one file or keep adding files/prints. What I love about this company is that it is located in the USA and are eco eco-friendly. They have been around since 2010. I also purchased their fabric swatch booklet. Their swim fabric is so silky, light, and has movement.

TAT is super short. I received our shark fabric in about a week and sent it right up to Bolder. We received our shorts options from Leah. I chose Kitty Purry and Miss V chose Sunflower.

Our finished skirts looked amazing and we received so many compliments at the race last year.

I also am including pictures of other fabrics that I had printed at Raspberry Creek Fabrics. I also have two more prints that I just purchased so that I could have a couple more skirts ready for Disney this fall.