Get In With Gingham Style

Gingham Style is my largest collection to date: nearly 200 distinct patterns. It started out simply enough though—I wanted to create a collection of printed patterns that resembled traditional woven gingham plaid, but in a range of colors carefully keyed to Spoonflower's new Petal Signature Cotton Solids. 

Before this, a problem arose whenever anyone tried to make a project with a printed fabric, and match it to a solid fabric purchased from a local fabric store. There was no way to be sure of a color match, except by bringing physical swatches of the printed fabric to the store with you.

The idea was that by color-coordinating my Gingham Style patterns with Petal Signature Cotton Solids, a customer could be assured of the correct color match.

My problem was that there are 50 Signature Solids. I eliminated black and white, which gave me 48 colors to design with. I knew I needed a railroaded gingham (straight grain), as well as a diagonally-oriented (bias) design. And I wanted two different scales: one with smaller stripes, and one with larger stripes.

What I ended up with was a huge collection of nearly 200 variations, all guaranteed to color-coordinate with matching solid colors. Whew! It took forever. But the result is a collection system of patterns and colors that work interchangeably.