craftgrrl | Adventures in Custom-Printed Fabric

A little while ago I got the idea for an ossuary-print skirt. I have always been fond of clothing with unusual prints, and anything macabre, especially bones and skeletons, seems to be in fashion right now, so I thought this was a good time to do this project. I had two different fabrics printed, using different photographs. The original ossuary photographs are by Paul Koudounaris (The Empire of Death) of the Capela dos Ossos (chapel of bones) ossuary in Portugal and have been used with permission.

Version 1:

Version 2:

I printed the fabric at Spoonflower. I got these printed on their kona cotton. The quality is nice; the fabric is thick and soft, but I'd like to try out their cotton sateen next time. I had to darken the original photographs and turn the contrast way up to get them to look similar to the originals once printed on fabric. I presume that if you were working with colorful images, you would probably need to turn the saturation up in the same manner. In general the printing was very clear, though expect to lose some detail in darker monochromatic areas.