On this episode of Make and Design, Carina welcomes special guest and Riley Blake designer Melanie Collette. Melanie talks about the process of getting a fabric line accepted by a major company for the first time. Hear about how, after initially getting no responses from fabric companies, she sat down, studied what made the fabric lines that she was buying special, and then incorporated all she learned into a focused effort to have a fabric line accepted by a specific company. Hear the whole story of hard work and persistence that finally got her to that first YES!    Find about more about Melanie at the following places:   Website: http://www.hellomellydesigns.com  Instagram: hellomellydesigns   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/