Printing on Sheer Fabric

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Extravorganza I often get asked about printing on sheers and the best way to get sheer fabric through your printer.

When I first started experimenting with sheers I tried using Extravorganza which is available in stores and is sheets of organza cut to size and backed with a sheet of paper. This worked well enough for small print jobs, but when I tried to print a full size sheet I ran into trouble.

After printing my image and removing the backing paper I found that the fabric had been attached to the backing paper crooked so my resulting print had an extremely noticeable wavy edge on two sides that couldn’t be straightened without distorting the image and after trimming the edges straight, my design was considerably reduced in size and the effect I was looking for was lost.

So while I might recommend Extravorganza for the convenience of doing small prints, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone wanting to work with large prints, particularly since it is so expensive and there exists the risk of ending up with a lopsided print.

Printing on Fabric So I still had to find a way to print a large image onto a sheer fabric and as it turned out, it was an easy fix after all. I do a lot of inkjet printing on cotton fabric and have found that the best way to get it through my printer with 100% success every time is to adhere it to a full sheet size label. Freezer paper is ok but sometimes it slips and sometimes it doesn’t feed through properly. Full sheet size labels are guaranteed to get it through the printer each and every time – I’ve never had a misprint using label backings. And the best thing is that each sheet can be reused up to approximately 8-10 times if you’re careful.

So using full size labels as backing, I decided to try it with sheer organza using a little extra care to ensure the sides adhered straight. I stopped off at the fabric store and picked up a yard of white organza ($5.00 on sale – don’t you just love a bargain?). So now the challenge was not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to ensure that the fabric adhered to the backing straight on all sides.

First I cut a piece of organza slightly larger than the label.

Printing on Sheer Fabric

Then to ensure that the edges adhered straight on all sides, I frayed away the edges on two sides of the organza until I had two perfectly straight edges.

Printing on Sheer Fabric

Then I aligned the two straight edges with the lines on my cutting mat, and taped all four sides of the organza to the mat using masking tape. I then peeled the backing from the label and positioned it along the “straight” top and side edge and pressed it down firmly on all sides.

Printing on Sheer Fabric

Using a brayer I then pressed the label to the fabric to ensure it stuck properly all over and after removing the masking tape I turned it over and brayered from the fabric side to get rid of any bubbles.

Update: I use a brayer with a hard roller to ensure that the sticky label is stuck really well to the fabric.

Brayer

I then trimmed the edges of the fabric to size and could see that it was perfectly placed. Now for the moment of truth – printing out my design and it was a perfect print with perfectly straight edges – ahh success!! And although the backing paper ended up with a ghost image transfer it was still quite sticky and useful for additional print jobs so success all the way round.

Printing on Sheer Fabric

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Printing on Fabric 101: Fabric Options

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Linda Matthews

Continuing the series Printing on Fabric 101. Last week we looked at printers and printer inks; today I’ll discuss a bit about fabrics.

You can print on just about any type or color of fabric so long as it’s properly prepared and backed with a paper carrier so it feeds through your printer easily and without jamming. For washable prints, you need to make sure you use specially treated fabric, and for water-resistant prints you can use special printer inks. However there are also a few other considerations to think about in relation to the type of fabric you choose …

Pre-washing Your Fabric
A good rule-of-thumb is, if you are using your printed images in an item that will be washed, it’s always a good idea to pre-wash your fabric in order to pre-shrink it before you print on it. If it’s something that will never be washed, then you have the choice of pre-washing or not. Pre-washing also helps to remove any surface treatment that might be applied to the fabric at the manufacturing stage, such as sizing, and this ensures that the ink has a very receptive surface.

Surface Texture
The surface texture of your fabric also will determine the results of your printed image. If you want fine detail to show up, choose a fabric that has a tight weave and a smooth surface. Prepared for dye (pfd) fabric is a good choice when printing fine detail, plus this type of fabric also has the advantage of being free of starches, sizing or other surface finishes so your print will have nice crisp detail and vivid color. Fabrics that have more open weaves such as muslin, are suitable for prints where fine detail is not required.

Fabric Color
Printing on fabric that is pure white will give you the most “true-to-life” color results, while printing on fabric that is off-white or natural in color can result in colors that are kind of muddy-looking. Similarly, printing on colored fabric will result in colors that are not “true-to-life”. This is because printer inks are transparent.

In these samples you can see that printing one color ink over the top of another color ink in fact changes the colors, similar to what happens when you mix paint colors.

Printing on Fabric

But colored fabric can also offer unexpected and often beautiful results depending on the type of image you’re printing, such as the image of this woman that was printed onto a pale orange hand-dyed fabric.

Printing on Fabric

Printing the Color White
Most printers will not print the color white. Generally what happens is, if there is a white section on your image the printer simply won’t print any color at all. This is ok if you’re printing on white, but if you’re printing on colored fabric the results can be a bit of a surprise.

The solution is to change the areas of white color on your image to a light gray or cream color. This can be done using photo editing software such as photoshop elements or similar programs. While your printer won’t print white, it will print every other color.

In the samples below you can see that on a cream colored muslin the tips of the petals appear to be quite white, and even on the colored fabric although not perfectly white, it gives the illusion of white which is better than printing no color at all which would result in petals the same color of the fabric.

Printing on Fabric

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of articles. If you missed out on some of the articles, you can find them all listed here.

Resources

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Printing on Fabric 101: Printer Inks

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Linda Matthews

Continuing the series Printing on Fabric 101. Last week we looked at printer feed paths so today I’ll discuss printer inks, which is another important aspect when printing on fabric.

Understanding inkjet printer inks can get a little confusing because each printer manufacturer makes their inks using different technologies and these technologies are advancing and changing constantly. I’ll try and keep this simple to understand for those of us (including me) who don’t really care about technologies but do want our printed images to have crisp clear detail, the color to be bright and fade-resistant, and the print to be either water resistant or waterproof depending on your application.

I discussed in a previous article how to make your printed images waterproof, but what about fade-resistance, color brightness and detail? A general understanding of printer inks will help you understand these features.

Types of Inks
The most common printer inks used in home printers fall into one of two categories – pigment-based or dye-based although some printers use a combination of both types. For example some printers will use a combination of a black cartridge with pigment based ink and color cartridges with dye-based ink. If you’re not sure what type of ink your printer uses, refer to the printer manual or check online with the manufacturer.

Dye Based Inks
Dye Based Inks are generally more vivid in color than pigment based inks however as technology advances this is changing, however dye based inks are less water and fade resistant than pigment based inks. They also tend to take a little longer to dry and this can sometimes cause blurring of the image.

Pigment Based Inks
Pigment Based Inks on the other hand are more light fast and generally water resistant. Although less intense in color than dye based inks, as mentioned previously improvements are constantly being made to improve this feature.

Let’s see it in action
The best way to demonstrate is always by testing. The picture on the left is the image I used. The picture on the right is the image printed on untreated fabric using two different printers; the “pigment ink” print was printed on my Epson Workforce 1100 using durabrite (pigment) inks, the “dye ink” print was printed on my Epson RX595 using claria (dye) inks. Both prints were printed using exactly the same printer settings but the results are only *similar*, not the same.

If you look closely you can see that the “pigment ink” print has printed significantly more detail than the “dye ink” print and you can notice this particularly around the center of the main flower where the “pigment ink” print has printed the little black dots in detail, but the “dye ink” print has not and the detail is blurred. The color on the “pigment ink” print is also more true to the original image.

Printing on Fabric

And this is not the only difference. After washing only for a few seconds, this is what happened… You can see that even when printed on untreated fabric the “pigment ink” print holds the ink much better than the “dye ink” print. Even though Epson doesn’t guarantee their durabrite inks to be waterproof, only water-resistant, they do in fact hold up well with a hand wash.

Printing on Fabric

Fade Resistance
As technology advances, printer inks are becoming more and more fade resistant. However there are also products that can be used to ensure further fade resistance as well as additional moisture resistance, such as Krylon Preserve It! which is a spray-on preservative for inkjet prints. The manufacturer guarantees that the spray will double the life of your printed image so if you want your printed images to be around and looking as good as new in a couple of hundred years you might consider using this type of product.

I use this product and I have to warn that it should be used outside because the fumes are quite overwhelming. You would also want to leave your prints in a well ventilated area for a day or two until the smell and fumes dissipate.

Generic vs Brand Name Inks
When printing on fabric your goal is to print high quality images, preferably water and fade resistant, and I can’t stress enough that generic inks simply will not provide these features.

Regardless of what the companies that sell generic ink tell you, generic inks are not of the same quality as brand name inks and do not meet the same standards, which is why they are cheaper than brand inks. Manufacturers spend a lot of money developing their inks to meet very specific requirements such as color and image quality, and fade and water resistance which means that genuine ink cartridges will provide you with very specific results which is often important when printing high quality, long lasting, images on fabric.

So What’s The Bottom Line?
The best printer for printing on fabric without a doubt a printer that uses pigment-based inks and has a straight through or an L-shaped feed. With some brands you still may have problems feeding, however most printers have a “thick paper” setting that you could try. My personal favorite is an Epson printer that uses durabrite (pigment) inks. This type of printer always provides me with troublefree printing and always gives the best results in color, detail and clarity, and washability.

It should be mentioned that I constantly hear reports about how the ink jets on the Epson printers are prone to clogging, however I’ve used Epson printers for 8 years or so and have only ever had one occurrence of this when I put my printer into storage and didn’t use it for about 8 months. Otherwise I leave my printers on all the time and have never experienced any problems whatsoever.

NEXT … Fabric Options

Resources

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Printing on Fabric 101: Printer Feed Paths

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Linda Matthews

Continuing the series Printing on Fabric 101, today let’s look at printers and the best feed path when printing on fabric.

One of the most common problems when printing on fabric is having the fabric jam when feeding through your printer. This problem can be alleviated in part by ensuring that the fabric is properly adhered to a paper backing so it feeds through your printer smoothly. Additional information about adhering your fabric to a paper backing can be found here for using freezer paper and an alternate method can be found here for using sticky labels .

Paper jams can also be avoided by using a printer with a feed path that better supports the thickness and texture of fabric, and ideally a straight through feed or an L-shaped feed are the best options for printing on fabric. If you’re not sure about your printer’s feed path, check your user manual.

Best Choice – Straight-Through Feed
The paper feeds from the back (or the front) of the printer and exits at the front (or the back) in a straight line. This ensures that the fabric remains securely bonded to the paper backing and feeds smoothly through the printer.

This type of printer offers the best solution for printing any type of material from very thin to quite thick.

Printing on Fabric

Next Best Choice – L-shaped Feed
The paper feeds from a tray located at the back of the printer in a downwards angle, curves slightly and then exits at the front. Because the fabric feeds through with only a very slight curve, the fabric remains securely bonded to the paper backing.

This type of printer is probably the most common and should work well with most types of material except the very rigid.

Printing on Fabric

Least Preferred Choice – U-Shaped Feed
The paper feeds from a horizontal tray located at the front or on top of the printer, feeds into the printer and makes a curve in order to exit.

This is the most difficult type of printer to work with as the fabric has to make (an often) sharp u-turn in order to feed through, and this can cause the fabric to form wrinkles as it bends, and then it peels away from the paper backing which in turn increases the risk of a paper jam. This type of printer will limit the types and thicknesses of materials that can be printed.

Printing on Fabric

NEXT … Printer Inks

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Printing on Fabric 101: Washable Prints

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Linda Matthews

Continuing the series Printing on Fabric 101, today let’s look at ways of making your inkjet prints washable.

Images on Fabric

One of the most common questions when printing images on fabric is … can I wash the prints? And of course you can .. but you do need to use fabric that has been pretreated with special solutions that make your printer inks permanent.

It’s worth noting that some printers use inks that are water-resistant however this doesn’t guarantee that your prints will be washable; this only guarantees that the inks will be water-resistant. This will be discussed in depth in a later article.

The most common ways to get washable prints on fabric is to use a product called Bubble Jetset 2000, or purchase fabric sheets that have already been pretreated and precut to size.

Bubble Jetset 2000

Bubble Jetset 2000 has been around for some years and has proven itself to be the best diy solution for making your inkjet prints washable. You can get around 40-50 sheets of fabric from one bottle of solution which costs around $16.00 so this is quite economical if you plan do lots of prints.

The process is extremely easy to do and you can find detailed instructions on the manufacturer’s website, as well as lots of other useful information about printing on fabric.

Bubble Jetset only works with fabrics that are 100% silk or cotton, and you need to iron your fabric onto a paper carrier to be able to print on it. Refer to The Basics for information about attaching your fabric to a paper carrier.

Very important things to remember about using Bubble Jetset …
… don’t wring the fabric – lift the fabric from the solution and let it drip dry or place on a towel to dry.
… once the print is dry, rinse with a mild detergent such as Bubble Jetset rinse – this removes any excess ink.

I’ve been using Bubble Jetset for almost ten years with excellent results so I am always happy to recommend it. Poor results are usually caused by not following the directions correctly, and in particular, ignoring the two steps mentioned above. It’s important that all the directions are followed exactly for the best results.

Pre-treated fabric sheets

An alternative to using Bubble Jetset, is to purchase fabrics that have been pretreated. This is a super quick and convenient way to get fabulous printed images and is a good option if you only plan on printing a few images. Pretreated fabric sheets can be found in most craft stores or purchased online and come in a wide variety of fabrics including twill, canvas, silks and organza.

You can generally use these types of fabric sheets with any inkjet printer and they already have a paper backing attached so they are ready to go through your printer. They are slightly more expensive than using Bubble Jetset, but the convenience of having the sheets precut and ready to print may be worth the extra expense.

Also, make sure you read the directions on the pack; different manufacturers have slightly different instructions.

It’s worth noting here that some of these pretreated sheets also result in prints that are extra vivid in color; Bubble Jetset does not affect the color of your prints, it only makes your prints washable.

NEXT … Printer Feed Paths