The Electric Quilt Company: Users: Newsletters and EQ Mailings

CONTENTS: Announcements - Ask EQ - Free Stuff - Works For Me - Show & Tell - Quilt University - Printing on Fabric - Quilters' Colors Patriotic Pin - Tips For Printing On Fabric - Linda Franz - Betty Ensz & Laura Jane Quint - Create a Coloring Book.

Printing On Fabric
by Judy Fletcher

Convoluted

For the first of what we hope may be a series of articles on printing on fabric, we asked Judy Fletcher to tell us about using Bubble Jet Set to pre-treat fabric before printing. Judy's fabric EQ designs have been displayed in one-woman shows, books, and in her popular classes.

Tip from Anita Grossman Solomon
Links to more Bubble Jet Set information
Bubble Jet Set 2000 Printing Class Handout

Printing on fabric pre-treated with Bubble Jet Set

I've been teaching classes about Inkjet Printing on Fabric for the past several years. By now I have about 60 printed quilt class samples. Most are original EQ designs. I print my Electric Quilt designs onto fabric that I've pre-treated with Bubble Jet Set - a solution that makes inkjet printing on fabric permanent.

It felt like something of a miracle to me when Bubble Jet Set first became available. There I was, with eight years' and four versions' worth of EQ designs. Obviously I wasn't going to find time to create quilts from these designs in this lifetime! So I started compulsively printing them onto fabric.This suggested an even more major breakthrough to me. I realized that I was unlimited. I could draw, and actually use, designs too complex to sanely make using usual quilting methods.

Printing quilt designs on fabric isn't difficult. I use white Dyers Cloth. First I prewash the fabric, then saturate it with Bubble Jet Set liquid, let it dry, and iron it onto freezer paper cut into 8 ½ x 11 inch sheets. For more detailed directions for this process, or purchasing information, see the links below.

Lately I've been using Canson disposable palette paper instead of freezer paper. It goes through my printer better because it's flat, and its poly coating seems to bond to and hold the fabric more securely than freezer paper does. Keeping the fabric flat, and as thread and lint free as possible, helps produce the best printouts.

Once the designs are printed, I let them sit and cure for a day or so. I then thoroughly rinse the Bubble Jet Set liquid out of them, spin them as dry as possible using my salad spinner (yes, you read that right!), and iron them flat.

Weird Karma

I've had success printing on fabric using HP and Epson printers. I prefer HP because I get more vivid black and colors. I usually use batik fabrics for the borders of my printed quilts, because they work well with the colors my HP produces. The example shown here is one of my 16 block quilts, consisting of four units of four block designs printed onto four pieces of computer printer sized paper. This quilt's center design only needed four sewn seams!

Anything you have designed in EQ can be printed onto fabric. If that's not a revolutionary idea, I don't know what is! My students also enjoy printing personal photographs, Web images, and designs manipulated in graphic programs onto fabric for use in their quilts. Being able to permanently print designs onto fabric has vastly increased our opportunities and options for quilt designing.

Tip from Anita Grossman Solomon

Tip from Anita Grossman Solomon, New York City

Here's a quick trick for drying sheets of fabric saturated with Bubble Jet Set. Slap your wet sheets of fabric onto your shower door, inside the shower (any other non-porous surface will do). The fabric sticks to the glass, it will drip into the shower, and there's no need to iron.

Links to Bubble Jet Set tips:

From Caryl Bryer Fallert
From Soft Expressions
From the manufacturer

CONTENTS: Announcements - Ask EQ - Free Stuff - Works For Me - Show & Tell - Quilt University - Printing on Fabric - Quilters' Colors Patriotic Pin - Tips For Printing On Fabric - Linda Franz - Betty Ensz & Laura Jane Quint - Create a Coloring Book.