I was a little bit testy. There was an unspoken question hovering in the air. If it had materialised, it would have hung there accusingly: "You'd think you'd remember buying a large bottle of special liquid for printing onto fabric, wouldn't you? Even if it was several years ago?" Himself did not even have to say "Doh!". Sometimes it's less embarrassing to get in there first.
So I have no idea if it will make the ink permanent and the fabric washable. But I will by Friday. Now that it has stopped lurking at the back of the cupboard and had made it to my workdesk, it is going to have a chance to strutt its stuff. I''ll bring you the results. But in the meantime, here's how I printed my fabric from last week. Please do try this at home. Or at work, if their printers are better :).
- This is 100% cotton fabric, washed and dried first to remove any surface glazes. Cut a piece of it to slightly larger than the size you wish to print: mine was A4. You could make your sizes exact at this point, but I found it was easier to get neat edges by trimmimg later. I used my X-cut guillotine because I still can't cut straight edges with scissors.
- Cut a piece of freezer paper, readily available from crafting stores and online, to the same size. Place the shiny side of it under your fabric and iron your fabric on top. This makes the freezer paper temporarily stick to your fabric and stiffen it enough, but keep it flexible, to go through the printer.
- Trim again to the correct size, making sure the leading edge - the one which will feed into the printer first - is nicely adhered (iron again on top if necessary).
- Place your fabric sheet in your printer. I removed any other paper from beneath so it was the only item in the printer tray. With your document up on your computer screen containing your fabric pattern, instruct it to print. I choose best quality for mine.
- Watch it print, camera at the ready. Peel off the freezer paper, and you're done: time to find someone who will admire it too!
If you have any queries, do ermail me, and I'll do my best to help. Hoping you have a lot of fun with it! Right, off to decipher the small print on the Bubble Jet 2000 label ... See you Friday? And do pop over to Julia's glorious list at The Stamping Ground for more peeks at workdesks all around the world!
