(Pricing and other factoids are likely to be well out of date, but the vibe is there.)

Pretty Rock Designs are available worldwide as wonderfully colourful and unique fabric prints from Spoonflower, the print-on-demand custom fabric shop. Spoonflower offers a huge choice of quality organic and synthetic fabrics from the delightfully floaty Silk Crepe de Chine, the quilting-friendly Kona® Cotton Premium Quilting Weight, to the sturdy Linen-Cotton Canvas, just perfect for bags and upholstery. The range is constantly expanding, so whatever project you have in mind, there’s a fabric for you. You can order a fabric sample swatch pack for a mere $1, with free shipping, or a, 8″ x 8″ test swatch of any print on any fabric for just $5.

Because Spoonflower is based in the US, all measurements are in inches, and all prices are in US dollars.

Finding a Pretty Rocks On Frocks design

Start with the Pretty Rocks On Frocks shop at http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/prettyrockdesigns:

You can also find the shop using the Search/Designers function; look for prettyrockdesigns:

Each design is represented by a single thumbnail (a small picture). There are a few options for the sort order of the designs, but choosing New is a handy way to keep up with the latest designs and improvements. In the navigation bar on the left there is an option for Fabric Collections which organises the designs in a different way. These groupings are always being reviewed as new categories suggest themselves. (It would be nice if Spoonflower allowed designs to be placed in multiple collections, hint hint.)

Depending on the fabric design, each thumbnail may display a preview of an 8″ x 8″ Swatch or a Fat Quarter (half a yard by half the width of the roll). You’ll get a much better idea of the scale of the design when you click the thumbnail and see the product page for that design. Some designs are available in more than one size. For example these two design thumbnails are based on the same Pretty Rock Designs photograph, and both illustrate a fat quarter of fabric, but they make two different fabrics which you could use in quite different ways:

Ordering Fabric

This is the product page for the design Purple Fire (Charoite), which is the second thumbnail from the left on the top row on the image above:

Here you can preview exactly how the design will look on your selected fabric length, and how much it will cost. This preview shows what you get in one yard of 40″-wide Cotton Silk:

Each of the different fabric types on offer come in different widths, so that will affect how many pattern repeats you get. We’ve optimised this particular design for the 40″ width of cotton silk, but choosing a wider fabric such as silk crepe de chine (42″ width) will simply give you an extra 2″ width of another repeat.

Wishing Things Were A Little Different

If you find a design that you like but would prefer the repeat size to be a little different, drop us a line at prettyrockdesigns@gmail.com or through the Spoonflower message system and we’ll see what we can do. Making smaller repeats is easy, but there are upper limits on how big a pattern can go without loss of resolution. That said, there are sometimes Things we can do, so feel free to ask about options.

We prefer to let the natural rocks speak for themselves, so we’re not really in the business of tweaking individual colours, but we will consider requests for tonal variations. Many of the earlier designs were brightened to compensate for printing issues on certain fabrics that have since been improved, and you might prefer a version that is closer to the original natural rock tones.

All requests are obligation-free.

Choosing A Size

You don’t have to buy whole yards of fabric – Spoonflower gives you the option of ordering a $5 8″ x 8″ swatch, which is generally a good idea if you want to be absolutely sure of fabric properties and colour reproduction. Dark colours in particular come out quite differently on the different fabric weights, and of course all computer monitors tend to vary in how they display colour.

The Fat Quarter is a standard fabric size in quilting circles, although “standard” is a bit of a misnomer – a fat quarter is half of the fabric width (in this case half of 40″ being 20″ wide) by half a yard (18″) long: 20″ x 18″. A Fat Quarter of a fabric that is 42″ wide will thus be 21″ x 18″. Most Pretty Rocks On Frocks large-scale prints are designed so that a single pattern repeat falls into this most common size for quilting fabrics.

If you have a big project you get a 20% discount for orders of 20 yards or more. (We like big projects. Go on, do it.)

But wait, there’s more! (But not any more!) Many designs are also available as rolls of satin finish 26″ x 72″ giftwrap:

This paper is gorgeously heavy and works really well for decoupage and other paper crafts. Again, feel free to ask prettyrockdesigns@gmail.com to see different repeat sizes, obligation-free.

…and even wallpaper! Details coming soon(ish) in a separate post (they wrote, maybe a decade ago).

Making The Purchase

When you’ve chosen the design, fabric type, and amount, click ADD TO CART to save your selection, then choose a few more – combined shipping is your friend! When you’ve finished making your selections, Spoonflower has a pretty standard shopping cart arrangement for checkout, including the option to pay by PayPal.

Having The Fun

We’d love to know what you have in mind for your fabulous Pretty Rocks On Frocks fabric or paper. Each design page includes a comment section and the options to attach images of your raw fabric or the competed project. Please do! We’re happy to promote commercial products based on our designs, like this beautiful designer dress from Kittenish Behaviour. Check out the accessories in the article too: jewellery, homewares, gifts, and more, available on demand from our Pretty Rock Empire shop on CafePress.

Doing The Business

If you’re a designer or decorator and would like to purchase exclusive rights to an existing Pretty Rocks On Frocks design, or have something new in mind, start the ball rolling with a message to prettyrockdesigns@gmail.com.

Rock on!