[facs] Responses to Printing on Fabric
ava chamberlain
Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:13:04 -0700
First, thanks to all of you who responded to
my question about printing on fabric with an
inkjet printer. Many of you also wanted to
know what I found out. I haven't had time to
try all of the ideas I received, but here are
a few.
The basic way is to just iron your fabric onto
the waxy side of freezer paper, cut it to
standard paper size then put it in the
printer. I liked using my rotary cutter after
the two were ironed together to get it nice
and straight. Others cut them out separately
then ironed them together
Some hints I received on this were to not use
too hot of an iron, and not to iron longer
than necessary to bond the two. Also, that
printers that feed face down usually work
best. (I tried it with a face-down HP feed
and a face-up Epson feed and they both
worked-but I see why the face down might work
better).
I tried washing two of the things I printed;
the black writing smeared and the colored
writing almost completely washed away.
To set in the ink there is a Bubble Jet Rinse
or Bubble Jet 2000 that can be purchased at
quilt stores or on the Internet at
(I'm sure there are
many other products out there on the Internet
that do the same thing.) I haven't tried this
yet, but I'll see if it works. The
instructions on the bottle are very vague.
(For wall hangings that may never be washed, I
wouldn't worry about it).
I talked to Cindy Wright from SUU who had this
done in one of her classes a few years back
and she said some of the inks were permanent
and some weren't; it just depended on the
printer.
Also, Jackie Dalley from Beaver was the one
who demonstrated that she has her students
design their own textiles on a piece of paper
then color copies them onto the cloth. (I
tried something similar to this and it came
out great! The HP all-in-ones that copy,
print and scan are perfect for this.)
Another person said that the color can be heat
set by using a teflon sheet to protect the
iron.
Other ideas that came in were that you can buy
pre-treated/pre-cut fabric that is colorfast.
Some of the places were
Walmart;
item #JT930 for white
and JT940 for cream,
Clotilde catalog,
Printed Treasures(produced by Milliken for
Internet search),
Roberts,
Hancocks
Thanks again to all to answered; this
listserve is great! Ava Chamberlain, Parowan
High