Meet the Artist: Karla Stelling of Mod Ink
Karla Stelling is the graphic and surface pattern designer behind Mod Ink, a creative studio based near Washington, D.C. Her work combines bold geometric shapes, stylized botanicals, whimsical garden creatures, and vibrant color with a distinctive mid-century modern influence.
Karla was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, where the modern art, architecture, furniture, and decorative objects surrounding her childhood helped shape her visual perspective. She now translates those influences into eye-catching patterns for fabric, wallpaper, stationery, gift wrap, apparel, accessories, and home décor.
Mod Ink designs are recognized for clean graphic forms, energetic repetition, confident color, and a playful sense of movement. Florals, foliage, ladybugs, checks, dots, and small-scale coordinates feel nostalgic without becoming literal reproductions of vintage textiles.
Her debut Textile District collection, Pop Garden, includes eight coordinated patterns in three modern-retro color stories. Every Mod Ink design is printed to order in the USA on your choice of 15+ base fabrics with a 1-yard minimum.
Venezuelan Mid-Century Influence with a Playful Modern Finish
Mod Ink reflects Karla’s lifelong attraction to bold shapes and expressive color. Simplified flowers, rounded leaves, checkerboards, honeycomb dots, and stylized insects are arranged into repeats that feel rhythmic, upbeat, and highly graphic.
The collection’s mid-century influence appears through flat color, strong silhouettes, simplified natural forms, and carefully controlled geometry. Slightly whimsical details keep the patterns approachable for contemporary homes, clothing, children’s projects, and modern quilting.
Karla develops patterns that can bring personality to practical products. A bold botanical can anchor curtains or upholstery, a playful ladybug print can become a memorable quilt or garment, and a small floral coordinate can finish bindings, linings, pockets, or accessories.
This balance between focal designs and supporting prints makes Pop Garden useful as a complete coordinated collection rather than simply a group of unrelated patterns.
Pop Garden Fabric Collection
Pop Garden is an eight-design collection inspired by blooming gardens, graphic foliage, lively insects, and retro geometry. The patterns are designed to mix across quilting, apparel, accessories, nursery projects, and home décor.
Whimsical Ladybug and Garden Prints
Botanic Beats and Buggy Parade bring playful insects into the collection through two different graphic approaches.
Botanic Beats combines stylized ladybugs with floral and geometric details in a rhythmic allover repeat. It works particularly well as a focal fabric for quilts, children’s clothing, nursery accents, bags, pajamas, and cheerful decorative projects.
Buggy Parade offers another lively interpretation of ladybugs through bold shapes and mid-century-inspired repetition. Its quirky character gives apparel, patchwork, accessories, and home décor an immediate sense of personality.
Bold Abstract Florals and Foliage
Bloom Stalks uses tall, stylized flowers to create vertical movement and botanical rhythm. Its structured repeat can become a statement on curtains, apparel, pillows, bedding, and upholstered accents.
Foliage Fiesta layers rounded leaves into a lively mid-century botanical. It can function as a focal design or as a bold background paired with the collection’s smaller flowers and geometric coordinates.
Graphic Checks and Geometric Coordinates
Floral Check reworks the familiar checkerboard by introducing simplified flowers within the geometric structure. The design has enough visual presence for curtains, bags, apparel, and large quilt sections while remaining easy to coordinate with the collection’s botanicals.
Dot Hive transforms the classic polka dot into a compact honeycomb-inspired repeat. It adds rhythm and texture without competing with the more detailed floral and insect patterns.
Small-Scale Floral Blenders
Mini Blooms is a clean ditsy floral designed for patchwork, bindings, apparel, linings, pillow backs, small accessories, and projects that need a quieter pattern.
Tiny Buds offers an even more restrained botanical coordinate. Its compact motif works well on detailed garment pieces, quilt blocks, napkins, bags, children’s clothing, and supporting home-décor accents.
Explore the Complete Pop Garden Collection
Three Coordinated Pop Garden Color Stories
Olive Indigo
Olive Indigo combines deep navy and muted blue with golden olive, warm beige, and cream. It offers a sophisticated retro palette for quilts, apparel, upholstery, curtains, bags, and rooms that balance botanical color with classic blue.
Forest Noir
Forest Noir brings together black, deep green, olive, dove gray, beige, and soft white. This is the collection’s moodiest and most neutral direction, making it especially versatile for modern interiors, statement upholstery, clothing, and graphic patchwork.
Sunset Swing
Sunset Swing uses fiery orange, tangerine, coral red, golden cream, and warm neutrals. Its energetic palette emphasizes Pop Garden’s playful mid-century character and works beautifully for children’s sewing, colorful quilts, retro apparel, pillows, and cheerful home accents.
What Makes Mod Ink Fabrics Distinctive?
- Authentic mid-century influence: Karla’s style grew from the modern art, architecture, and interiors she experienced while growing up in Caracas.
- Bold graphic construction: Flat color, clean silhouettes, simplified botanicals, and strong geometric repetition give the patterns visual clarity.
- Whimsical garden imagery: Ladybugs, stylized flowers, leaves, dots, and checks add personality without feeling overly juvenile.
- Coordinated pattern roles: Focal florals and insect designs are supported by checks, dots, ditsy flowers, and tiny botanical blenders.
- Versatile modern-retro color: Olive Indigo, Forest Noir, and Sunset Swing move from sophisticated and moody to warm and energetic.
- Broad project potential: Pop Garden supports quilting, apparel, upholstery, curtains, nursery sewing, bags, bedding, and decorative accessories.
Project Inspiration for Mod Ink Fabrics
Modern Quilts and Coordinated Patchwork
Use Botanic Beats, Buggy Parade, Bloom Stalks, or Foliage Fiesta as the focal fabric. Add Floral Check and Dot Hive for geometric contrast, then use Mini Blooms or Tiny Buds for smaller blocks, borders, binding, and backing.
Working within one Pop Garden color story keeps the quilt coordinated while allowing motif and scale to change throughout the design.
Retro Apparel and Accessories
Print the floral, foliage, insect, or geometric designs on lightweight cotton, cotton sateen, linen, stretch fabric, or another suitable apparel base for dresses, skirts, shirts, jackets, pajamas, tote bags, and zipper pouches.
Mini Blooms and Tiny Buds are useful for linings, pockets, collars, cuffs, facings, and smaller pattern pieces.
Statement Home Décor
Use Bloom Stalks, Foliage Fiesta, Floral Check, or Botanic Beats for curtains, upholstered chairs, benches, headboards, bedding, and statement pillows.
Repeat the color palette through Dot Hive, Mini Blooms, or Tiny Buds on pillow backs, piping, lampshades, table linens, and fabric storage.
Printed to Order on Your Choice of Fabric
Mod Ink designs are available by the yard on 15+ base fabrics, allowing you to select the weight, texture, drape, and performance best suited to your project. Options include cottons, linens, natural-fiber blends, performance fabrics, fleece, and specialty textiles for apparel, quilting, curtains, bedding, upholstery accents, and accessories.
- Printed to order in the USA
- 1-yard minimum
- Eight coordinated Pop Garden designs
- Olive Indigo, Forest Noir, and Sunset Swing colorways
- Mid-century floral, botanical, ladybug, check, dot, and small-scale patterns
- Natural-fiber fabrics are steamed, washed, and dried after printing for a soft hand and durable, colorfast results
- Detailed digital printing preserves crisp geometric forms, clean silhouettes, and saturated modern-retro color
How to Order
- Browse the Mod Ink Brand page and select a pattern.
- Choose Olive Indigo, Forest Noir, or Sunset Swing.
- Select the base fabric best suited to your project.
- Enter the required yardage and add the fabric to your cart.
Need help choosing a fabric? Compare specifications and recommended uses in Our Fabrics, order a Ground Fabric Swatch Kit, review our Frequently Asked Questions, or contact The Textile District.
For additional collection inspiration, read the Pop Garden Collection Spotlight.
Shop Mod Ink Mid-Century Fabrics
Mod Ink artwork available on The Textile District is licensed for printing and sale on this website.