What are your favorite kinds of fabric prints?

My favourite prints are…. solids.

Yeah, sorry to be difficult, but I am totally not a print person at all. I’ve learned my lesson after 8 years of sewing – I’d used to buy prints in fabric stores, sew them up, and then never, ever wear the garment because I just don’t feel comfortable in most print fabrics. So I suppose in true answer to your question – if I wear prints at all, they’re either very subtle, trompe l’oeil (like fake lace or fake sequin), or classic (like breton stripe).

I love stripes and can never find them. I see delicious stripes in photos, fashion blogs etc, but nothing in the stores. But I want grown up stripes that don’t look like you stole your niece’s fabric. I prefer greyer hues to clear hues. I love paisley and jacobean prints also.

I think the biggest issue for me with this series of questions is the fact that a lot of it depends on the pattern or garment that I’m making. However, if we’re just talking fabric in general then:

Do you prefer large scale or small scale prints for your clothing? I actually like both depending on the pattern. Big flowing flowers, or simple polka dots. I’m very eclectic in my tastes.

What kinds of prints do you go for? Stripes, florals, plaids, dots, conversation prints, geometrics, etc? More than anything I think I just avoid conversation prints and geometrics. I prefer all over patterns like stripes, small florals, plaids, and dots, once in a while I like the big asymmetrical florals, but usually I go for a small, all over pattern.

Do you like bright and busy prints, or do you look for more subdued prints? It would depend on the situation. I love bright, bold colours, and most of my wardrobe is that, but I do love a subdued print now and then (one of my soon to be made dresses is a beige and brown floral.)

Do you like bold colors or muted or pale colors? Bold, definitely bold, I am not a pastel girl.

Are the prints you buy different from the prints you actually wear? i.e., Are you attracted to prints at the fabric store that you don’t actually have a way to fit into your wardrobe? Not usually. I find this more with my knitting than with sewing. I see colours in a ball of yarn and love them, but then don’t like how the knit up. More often with sewing I’ll buy outrageous fabric, mull over it for a few months, then just make something and force myself to wear it. By the time I’ve finished my day, I love it.

What do you think is hard to find out there? Decent florals that don’t look like either quilting fabrics or granny fabrics.

What do you look for? Anything that appeals to me. I usually buy the fabric and find a pattern to work for it.

I love dots, stripes and large scale florals when it comes to patterned materials. As far as bold or muted with coloring – I am anything goes kind of girl.

My all-time favorite print is dots! I also like plaids/gingham and small-scale florals as well as stripes. And I’m more a bold color type of girl, although I like black, grey and navy as neutrals. Sometimes, I think a fabric is fantastic (a big graphic or fruit print, maybe) and I’ll have to remind myself that I very rarely wear big prints…

I love to look at prints, and I love Liberty of London prints in particular, but I wear more solids. In fact, I have several pieces of LOL fabric but have yet to sew any of them up. I use prints for rayon knit tops and the occasional dress. In silk, they are also OK as lining fabric for a wool garment. I am not at all interested in wearing quilting fabrics as they just look home-ec to me. I guess I want my prints to be like RTW prints. Of course, among the most important features of a fabric are the feel and drape. Most quilting fabric feels nasty and drapes badly. I want my home made clothes to look like quality RTW, not a quilting project.

I love prints that scream “I’M PSYCHEDELIC!!! I’M LOUD!!! AND I WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER!” What can I say, I love the 60’s! Bold reds and blues together are my favorite, but I also love a eye-melting op art print in black and white. The kind that gives you a headache! I admire soft pastels on other people, but it just doesn’t feel right on me. The more annoying and garish, the better! (excepting tie-dye, cannot stand that at all, reminds me too much of summer camp crafts!)

I am in the “it depends” group. Color dominates most of my fabric selections. Being 5’10” I look for larger prints, floral or geometric for tops and dresses. I agree with Miriam – NOT a fan of anything too “precious or overly feminine”. Pants require solids or subdued stripes. I would like to see more selections available in knits that an adult could wear. They are really hard to find where I live.

(Long time lurker, first time replying…)

In my clothing sewing, I tend to avoid prints, mostly because of the quality of printed fabric I can find locally. With a few exceptions, fabrics intended for quilting really aren’t right (in terms of hand, drape, weight, etc) for clothes. No matter how cute a print is, if it’s printed on stiff, scratchy, sheer fabric, it’ll be difficult to make something that I’ll love to wear.

That said, assuming high-quality dressmaking fabric, I would love small-scale florals with some blank space in between the flowers. I’ve been searching for black cotton with little red flowers for years without any luck. I also like prints that are small enough and repetitive enough to come off more as a texture than a print. And I like the idea of geometric prints, but can’t ever seem to find one where the scale feels right for my 5’1″ self, heh.

I am more so a solids person. What catches my eye with fashion is the cut and shapes. Which is probably why my favorite designer right now is Masayo Yasuki’s with Dogstar.
I do find myself drawn to dots, strips and abstract prints. Don’t ask me why floral prints show up in my stash, but they usually are on the medium to large scale. Right now I do love African Wax prints, they are so bold and exciting.

I am a plus sized gal and I like to sew because it can be hard to find things that fit just right. I like bold colors (I am dark haired) in medium and smaller scale prints. As much as I love larger prints it doesn’t do to end up with a giant rose right on your butt. I am a big fan of vertical stripes, paisley, small polka dots, interesting florals that don’t look like granny nightgown fabric, geometric.

I’m a flower girl, I love flower prints in most scales. I prefer pastel colors but quite often can’t resist black background flower prints. This is my first comment in this beautiful blog, so forgive me if it is still a little shy.

I would love to be able to find blouse/dress-weight cotton in border prints. Border prints are so interesting! There were some great border prints in the mid-19th century, and more at various times in the 20th century. I always love repro fabrics, especially when there’s information available about the original material (what textile, weight, colorway, use, etc. it was, when it’s from, whether the repro is from an extant textile or a design book). There’s a market out there for apparel-weight reproduction fabrics!

I would like a wider choice of unuasual solid colors in a variety of materials. For instance I can find interesting colors in wool and corduroy but (funnily enough) not so much in cotton and linen. I would like more vintage and traditional inspired prints. I would never sew with conversation prints.
Thanks for asking!

I really love the chevron. I tend to like prints that are bold and not too cutesy.

I like vintage florals as well, and I also use geometrics and dots/stripes. I have a really hard time finding fabric with good spacing between the elements for garments, especially in cotton prints. Fabrics do not need to be so busy and have design elements covering every available space! I’d like to see some space between those flowers, dots, without mottling the background to make it look “old-timey”.

When I do sew with printed fabric, some thing I do rarely, I prefer geometic/ abstract designs.

I love small to medium sized prints–I want to wear the fabric, not look like it’s wearing me, and I’m always on the lookout for sophisticated, saturated colors. When I’m looking at a fabric for sewing, I avoid patterns that are going to be a nightmare to match the seams or add ridiculous amounts of yardage to match the print across pieces. Geometric patterns and asian-inspired florals are favorites. While I buy many solid pieces in ready-to-wear, I concentrate on patterns and textures in choosing fabric for sewing, to make something special and fun.

I love prints but scale is paramount. The bigger the better. I’m always disappointed if the print melts into nothingness when you step more than a metre away from the garment, or if the repeats of the print are too obvious.

I also don’t like prints to be too pretty; they need some boldness, acid or wit in them or I find them cloying and just not me.

I love me some houndstooth, polka dots, classic stripes, chevron, ginghams and even the large scale graphic/geometric or floral (a la Marimekko), in moderation. But it’s sooo hard to find something in a suitable garment textile. Just took a peek at my RTW – lots of stripes and dots. Flowers are nice, and though I’m drawn to fabrics like Liberty, I feel they don’t suit me as well.

I am a pattern fiend. Seriously! I cannot handle wearing an all-solid outfit, except for some rare days when I just want to wear all black and just be a shape. I have a rule where no outfit should go without a touch of something “alive,” so this means patterns with animals on them (not animal print) or florals. A large part of my wardrobe is vintage, but I’m extremely particular about color. Pretty much if I see a pattern I like, I will wear the clothing to a fault; even if it doesn’t really fit me well as far as the garment itself goes.

What I’m often looking for in fabrics for my own projects are: space photography prints, a map, always polka dots but preferably dots which are not aligned to a grid, houses, florals that are more illustrative and less line work, and Japanese ditzy animal silly things… These wishes tend to be really difficult to find, are printed on the wrong kind of fabric, or are really expensive!

I want abstract florals and geometrics, please. Think distorted circles and what is referred to as “ethnic” prints. The prints should be medium-sized (smaller than 1″ in a large area), and I like tonal prints: blue on blue, etc. I buy slightly muted shades (sea green, not full-on bright jade). Ahh, now if I just could make these for my Spoonflower account!

for me, it’s either solids or small floral for clothing. if it’s for decor, i usually go for dots and stripes, if not, yet again, solids.
but bottom line, i would definitely drawn to the small floral shelf in a shop. they’re forever so cute.

I’m all over the place in what I wear — just out of college and trying to find a style. So far: darker solids in the winter (when I need layers) and bright prints in the summer (when I can get away with a bright print and one other solid in a camisole or light jacket). I do find it hard to find subtle solids — colors which aren’t found in the basic box of 16 crayons.

My love-it-can’t-find-it fabric has to be an interesting square woven plaid. Interesting generally in color to avoid the school girl look, square so it can be put on the bias without looking wrong. I love using plaid on the bias, but the rectangular kind just doesn’t work. Woven because printed plaid is so often off grain, and then you’re sunk. Preferred fabric would be a lightweight wool.

On the other end of the spectrum, my they’re-everywhere-who-actually-uses-these-fabrics: poly charmeuse and poly chiffon. Now, I’ve used them once in a while, and admit they have their place, but in the big box store where I shop (due to limited options and budget), it seems 80% of the garment fabrics are one or the other. There are so many great print patterns I’d love to see in a cotton lawn, or a poly crepe, or a cotton sateen or some kind of knit. In short, fabrics which aren’t super-shiny or sheer.

Prints add a fun factor to sewing. The variety of styles and colors make for a creative challenge. I think the color combination and proportions are important in how often it will be worn. Prints that blend with denim blue, black and other neutrals always get the most wear.

I find it difficult to buy prints online since they are pictured in a small square with a white frame, making it like going to a museum and selecting your favorite painting. Not always the best for sewing when it arrives in the mail. It is so helpful to blend the print with the solids that make the fun color combinations jump out.

If I was designing prints I would be aware of the colors that blend with the many solid muted colors and neutrals people wear. Fun quirky little variations are nice and harmony where the colors combine rather than stand alone.

I love the peeking out bit of print as a lining or simple shell or little skirt or scarf. There is a message of optimism and play that you can share with everyone you meet.