Fabric Submission Guidelines

To look their best in the Quilt Planner, fabric images need to be cropped into perfect squares. If they’re not, the system will automatically force them into a square, distorting the design (and nobody wants that!).

The good news is that many fabric company websites already display images in a Quiltster-friendly format: consistent sizes, often with a ruler included. This makes it easy for our team to quickly batch-edit an entire collection into perfect squares, remove the ruler, and confirm the swatch size so the fabric displays at the correct scale in Quiltster.

That said, if you have pre-release collections that aren’t yet posted online, please feel free to send them however you’re able. We’ll make sure they get entered into Quiltster so your team and reps can start using them, even if the formatting takes a little extra time on our end.

This guide outlines exactly what we need and how to organize your files in a share-file system so we can represent your fabrics accurately and beautifully to both quilters and quilt shops.

Summary of Requirements

Preparing Fabric Files

The final Quiltster-ready file includes the following:

  • Perfect square. True to size in inches. (Swatch size).
  • 72dpi
  • No logos, tape, rulers, shadows
  • JPG or PNG
  • Each fabric image named with exact SKU

Need help editing? Quiltster staff can assist.  Please follow the remaining steps and we can help. Support is handled in the order received and may affect publish timing.

Organizing Fabric Files
  • One folder per Collection.
  • One folder per Designer.
Sending Your Swatches
  • Share the files via Dropbox or other file-sharing service.
  • Send an email with the Shop and Consumer release dates for each collection.

Fabric Submission Guidelines

Preparing Fabric Files

Crop into Perfect Squares

Ideal: Edit into a perfect square.  This is the Quiltster-ready format.

Example: An 8″ × 8″ swatch should be cropped to 8″ × 8″ at 72 dpi.

Next-best: If all of your swatches are uniform but not perfect squares, that is perfectly fine. Our team can quickly crop an entire uniform collection. 

We’ll do our best!: If all the images are different sizes, our team can edit each one individually, however, this will severely delay publishing time.  Please keep this in mind when sending files that need faster turn-around times.

File Resolution: 72 dpi

Clean Image: No logos, tape, rulers, folds, wrinkles, shadows, or watermarks. Anything showing in the image other than fabric will need to be cropped out.  Again, if it’s the same on all swatches, our team can edit that out, if needed.

File Format: JPG or PNG

File Name: SKU. This is what will show as the SKU on our website so making sure the file name is purely the SKU is important.  

Example: 

Left: Original fabric file from the manufacturer.  Right: Quiltster-ready file. This is a 12″ x 12″ swatch size.

Incorrect File Name: JN-C2969 APPLE_72dpi
Correct File name as the SKU: JN-C2969 APPLE

Left: Original fabric file from the manufacturer.  Right: Edited Quiltster-ready file. This is a 12″ x 12″ swatch size.

Organizing Fabric Files

Create one folder per Collection. Name the folder with the exact Collection Name. Place all SKU’s for that collection inside the folder.

Example: Willow Farm → contains all individual SKUs for that collection.

Create one folder per Designer. Name the folder with the exact Designer company name.  Place all Collections from that designer in the folder.

Example: Jane Smith Designs → contains all Collection folders for that designer.

Sending Your Swatches

There are two steps in sending in your swatches:

  1. Share via a file-sharing service (e.g., Dropbox) and invite our main contact email: info at quiltster.com.

     

  2. Send and email listing the release dates for each collection. This is how we schedule publication for each collection. For each Collection, please include:
    • Collection Name
    • Shop Release Date
    • Consumer Release Date

Definitions of release dates:

Shop Release Date: Indicates when a shop begins placing orders for the collection prior to its ship date.  These collections are visible to all Shop subscribers in Quiltster, but are hidden from Consumer subscribers and the general public.

Consumer Release Date: Indicates when the fabric begins shipping to shops and becomes available for consumers to purchase. (Often coincides with delivery to shops.) These collections will be visible to all Quiltster subscribers as well as the general public.

If dates are not provided we will upload the swatches and keep the collection visible only to Quiltster subscribers from your fabric company until dates are supplied.

Example:

    • Collection Name: Willow Farm
    • Shop Release Date: 10/01/25
    • Consumer Release Date: 02/01/26
Questions

Please contact Deborah Breckenridge with any questions.