Custom Fleece Blanket File Setup: Size, Bleed, and Background

Why canvas dimensions, the 5 mm bleed zone, and transparent PNGs decide your print result.

TL;DR

A custom fleece blanket from Popecho prints your full artwork across 300G flannel fleece using reactive dye — colour bonds directly into the fibres rather than sitting on top. The two size variants (100×150 cm and 150×200 cm) have different canvas dimensions, and that mismatch is the most common file mistake. Open your chosen size in Popecho's onsite editor to lock the correct canvas, set the bleed boundary, and review the safe-zone overlay before exporting.

What This Subtype Actually Demands

Flannel fleece is a pile fabric, not a flat substrate. Reactive dye bonds into the fibres and produces deep, saturated colour, but the surface diffuses fine detail the same way velvet does. Ultra-thin lines, small-cap text, and intricate linework lose crispness in ways that are invisible in your digital mockup and only visible once the blanket is in your hands. This is not a print defect — it is the material reality of the format.

The other demand is size discipline. The two variants are not just scaled versions of the same canvas: 100×150 cm and 150×200 cm each have their own pixel dimensions at 300 DPI, and submitting artwork sized for one variant to the other shifts every element's position relative to the finished cut. The overlock-stitched border occupies the outermost edge, so anything misaligned lands in the seam zone before you even account for bleed.

Setting Up the Artwork

Popecho's onsite editor loads the correct canvas and bleed boundary for whichever size variant you open, so start there rather than building a canvas from scratch in your design app.

• Small (100×150 cm finished): The print canvas is 1010×1510 mm — 11,929×17,835 px at 300 DPI. The 5 mm bleed on every side accounts for the difference between canvas and finished cut.
• Large (150×200 cm finished): The print canvas is 1510×2010 mm — 17,835×23,740 px at 300 DPI.
• Resolution: 300 DPI minimum. Phone camera images processed through beauty or smoothing filters frequently fall below usable resolution; restore sharpness in an editing app before uploading or the result will be visibly soft.
• Colour mode: Submit RGB. CMYK files are auto-converted at production, and the tone shift can be significant on saturated palette work.
• Safe zone: Inside Popecho's editor the safe-zone overlay marks the finished-cut boundary. Keep all faces, logos, and any text at least 5 mm inside that line — the bleed margin is trimmed away and the overlock seam covers the outermost edge.
• File size: Hard cap is 20 MB per file. Flatten layers and compress before uploading if your file is large.

(Accepted formats are PNG and JPG — more on the PNG transparency trap in the next section.)

Surface and Production Decisions

Reactive dye sublimation drives colour into the flannel fibres rather than depositing an ink layer on top. The practical result: the print flexes and drapes without cracking at folds, the hand-feel stays soft across the whole blanket, and the colour reads with a slight depth that flat paper or acrylic prints lack. What it cannot do is guarantee a pixel-perfect screen match — slight variance between your RGB upload and the finished fabric print is inherent to fabric dyeing, not a production defect.

Transparent PNG background: On paper or acrylic, transparency renders as nothing. On flannel, it renders as the off-white base fabric. Popecho's source imagery shows this side-by-side: a PNG with transparency submitted to a fleece blank shows the raw fleece base wherever the layer is clear. If you want full-bleed colour coverage, flatten your artwork onto a solid background colour before exporting. Transparent PNG is only appropriate when you want the fleece base to show through as an intentional design element — a gradient dissolve into the fabric texture, for example.

The overlock-stitched border is a finishing choice that keeps the edge durable and clean, but it also means no design detail should live in the bleed zone. Anything that crosses the finished-cut boundary disappears into the seam.

Popecho produces this blanket in approximately 13 days, with no minimum order — a single unit is sufficient to proof your design before a larger run.

What Trips Creators Up

Wrong canvas for the size variant. Artwork built for the small blanket submitted to the large order — or vice versa — shifts every element's crop and safe-zone relationship. Open the correct size in Popecho's editor first; do not manually scale an existing canvas to match.

Transparent PNG rendering as fabric. Creators who use PNG transparency to create a clean-edge character or logo on merch are surprised when the fleece base shows through instead of a white or coloured field. Flatten onto a solid background unless the fleece texture is intentional.

Fine detail and small text. Flannel pile diffuses edges. A logotype that reads cleanly at 12 pt on screen prints as a blurry smudge on fabric. Bold weights and large type are not a creative compromise — they are the correct choice for this substrate.

File size rejection. At 300 DPI, large-format canvases produce heavy files. The 20 MB hard cap is enforced at upload. Flatten layers, merge groups, and export compressed before submitting — a rejected upload does not pause your production clock.