Sometimes choosing fabric for Momako Designs is a very thoughtful business decision.
And sometimes I see a print, like it, and buy it.
Honestly, it's usually somewhere in between.
Prints are a huge part of what I make, and because I work with so many different colors and styles, there isn't really a checklist a fabric has to pass before I'll use it. I don't have a specific Momako Designs color palette or a rule that says I only buy certain kinds of prints.
Mostly, I have to like it.
But after doing this for a while — and realizing that both fabric and places to store fabric cost money — I've gotten a little more intentional about what comes home with me.
Sometimes I'm shopping for a product
If I'm getting low on variety for a particular product, I'll shop with that product in mind.
Scale is one of the first things I look at. A smaller print gives me more flexibility because enough of the design will show on smaller items, while a larger bag gives me a lot more room to work with just about anything.
That doesn't mean I won't put a giant print on something small, though.
Sometimes the colors are good enough that it doesn't really matter if you can tell what the original motif was. A little section of a much larger design can turn into something completely different once it's cut down — and still look really good.
Ideally, I like finding prints that can work across several different products. It gives me more options for the yardage and means I don't necessarily have to know exactly what every inch of it will become when I buy it.
The fabric itself matters, too
A great print doesn't necessarily mean it's a great fabric for what I make.
I generally prefer to work with fabrics that have enough structure to cooperate with me. Anything particularly soft can be difficult for the bags and accessories I make, although that same fabric might be perfectly suited for something like a blanket or scrunchie.
I'm also usually going to pass on poly-cotton unless I really, really like the print.
Beyond that, I'm not especially strict. A very basic floral probably isn't going to get my attention, and overly cartoon-y prints generally aren't my thing. But my taste covers a pretty wide range.
Cute, bold, graphic, classy, colorful, vintage — if I like it and can see it becoming something, it's in the running.
I find fabric pretty much everywhere
I don't have one secret fabric source.
I shop locally on Kauaʻi, on other islands, online, and from shops in other countries. Sometimes I'm buying from a fabric shop where what's on the shelf is all there is. Other times I'm ordering from somewhere like Spoonflower, where a design is printed and can potentially be reordered as long as it's still available.
That difference ends up affecting how long a particular print sticks around at Momako Designs.
A print I buy in person or from a smaller online fabric shop may already be gone by the time I've turned my yardage into finished products. I've had customers ask about an older print and occasionally I've managed to track down more, but usually when it's gone, it's gone.
And I've come to like that.
Two yards is usually plenty
I generally buy about two yards of a print at a time.
That's enough for me to cut several of whatever I'm trying to stock without committing myself to a giant amount of fabric. I don't particularly want shelves full of yardage waiting for the day I finally decide what to do with it.
For one thing, I don't have the storage space.
So rather than letting fabric sit as yardage, I'll usually cut what I need for several products. Those pieces become part of my inventory to sew, and whatever is left gets cut down into usable scraps and goes into the scrap bag.
The exception is lining fabric. Since I use solids for a lot of my linings, those are useful enough across different products that buying a bolt actually makes sense.
A bolt of one aloha print I'm suddenly responsible for finding uses for?
Less appealing.
I try very hard not to fussy cut
Fussy cutting is when you deliberately position a particular part of a print exactly where you want it on the finished piece.
It can look great.
I avoid it whenever possible.
The more precisely I have to position a pattern piece over the fabric, the less efficiently I can use the yardage. Instead of arranging pieces to get the most out of what I bought, I'm cutting around particular flowers, motifs, or other details and inevitably creating more scraps.
Sometimes it's necessary. Prints with words are a good example — nobody wants half a word disappearing into a seam because I was determined to squeeze one more piece out of the yardage.
Certain products and prints also just need more deliberate placement to look right.
When that happens, I'll do it. I'll just be mildly annoyed about how much fabric it takes.
Fortunately, the leftover pieces don't automatically become waste. Those scraps go into the scrap bag too, where they can eventually find their way into patchwork and other projects.
I don't really know what you're going to like
You'd think selling things for years would eventually give me the ability to look at a fabric and know exactly how customers are going to react to it.
It has not.
Something I think people are going to love might sit for a while. Something I wasn't expecting to get much attention can find exactly the right person.
So I don't try too hard to predict it anymore.
If I love a fabric, I'll use it to make whatever I need to stock. My tastes are varied enough that the result is a pretty wide mix of styles anyway. Some things are cute. Some are colorful. Some are bold. Some are much more classic.
Someone will eventually want it.
The bigger question is usually when the right person is going to find it.
Once it's gone, it might actually be gone
There are definitely prints I like being able to reorder. If something works especially well, it's nice to bring it back in another product — or restock something that sold out.
But there's also something that feels very on-brand for Momako Designs about a print having its moment and then disappearing.
That's one reason I enjoy working with vintage fabric. There's a limited amount of it from the beginning. I can make what the fabric allows me to make, and the people who buy those pieces seem to appreciate that they're getting something I can't simply reproduce indefinitely.
Even with newer fabrics, I don't want every print to become permanent.
I like that the shop changes. I like that the same bag can look completely different depending on what I'm working with at the time. And I like being able to buy something simply because I think it's great, make a few things from it, use the scraps somewhere else, and then move on to whatever catches my eye next.
So there isn't a complicated formula behind every print you see at Momako Designs.
Sometimes I needed something small-scale for a particular product. Sometimes I knew a fabric would work across half the shop. Sometimes I found a vintage piece I couldn't pass up.
And sometimes?
I just really liked it.
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