The process from design to fabric is a lot longer than you might think! I often get some pretty shocked looks when I talk about the timeline. So I thought I’d share some interesting facts about what it’s like, what it entails, and how long it takes.
Submitting your designs
The first step of this process is submitting your designs. Before I had a contract with Moda, I put together a portfolio of my art. I had made several collections of patterns that I thought would go well on quilting fabric. I submitted this portfolio to several fabric manufacturing companies in the quilting industry.
Side note: How to find the right contacts. I went to Quilt Con and spoke with these company representatives to find out who exactly I needed to contact and how.
Then came the hard part- the wait! Submitting your art (not just for the first time) always feels like I’m sharing a part of my soul. It feels revealing and vulnerable. So, of course, the rejections fall hard. I was rejected from the first company and it felt like the weight of all my dreams falling on my chest.
About a month later, Moda came back to me and said they liked what I had submitted and wanted to contract me and move forward with some of my collections I had presented!
A. Dream. Come. True!!!
From Design to Fabric timeline
The timeline from design to fabric is over a year! Here’s a look at what happens in that timeline.
- I designed those very first designs in Sept 2023 – February of 2024.
- I submitted my work to Moda in February 2024.
- In March of 2024, Moda offered me a contract.
- Now it’s time to fine tune your art and prep it for the mill by June.
- In August, the mill sends me a “strike-off”. This is a practice run or sample of all my designs to make sure the colors look right and the designs look good.
- December of 2024 is when I first got the bolts of fabric for my first collection. MY FABRIC! Time to get to work making things!
- February – March 2025 my first collection is available for wholesale accounts (ie. shops) to purchase!
- October 2025 is when my first fabric collection hits the shops and quilters finally get their hands on it!
Fine tuning your art
Before a design can make the final hurdle from design to fabric, you have to get specific about what color each element in each design needs to be. To do this, I label each layer/element in each design and make a spreadsheet to go with it. Then I try to match up most colors with Moda’s Pure Solids. I do this because their mills already know those colors and can make them without too much hassle.
But sometimes I can’t find quite the right match for what I am envisioning. In those cases, I go to Home Depot and grab some color swatch cards and audition them with the solids in that line. Once I have a color card selected, I indicate it on my spreadsheet and mail it to the mill for them to match.
The Stike-OFFs
When the mill sends me the strike-offs, they often send me more options than what I sent them. They do this to help eliminate some of the back and forth. With my first collection, they sent me over 100 variations! And it was my job to whittle it down to 32-36 SKUs! That was so hard! But it’s so fun to see your collection take shape right in front of your eyes!
Time to start sewing
Once a collection has finally made the passage from design to fabric, Moda sends me yardage of each SKU so that I can start making things with it! I create a quilt pattern to go with each collection to help it sell and to help quilters visualize what they can make with it. This also helps shops sell the yardage they purchase. For my first collection, Potted, I made quilts, bags, a quilt coat, and an ironing table!
To be completely honest though, by the time I start making things with this fabric line, I’m already sick of looking at it! Haha. I’ve already moved on to the second and third fabric lines! I’m already excited for the next thing! So it can be kind of tricky jumping forward and backward in the timeline with the various collections I have in the various stages of the timeline.
You can find the Potted collection on Moda’s website or on my fabric page where I will update it as new lines release!
If you’d like to know how I got into surface design and digital art, you can check out Liz Kohler Brown’s Studio Membership! This is where I started! Liz has hundreds of digital art tutorials and lessons! It’s a great place to start and really fun!
