More Image Transfers to Fabric

Referring back to Transfer Artist Paper (TAP): I have found that it transfers very well on to silk Dupion - see the image of my granddaughter on the left.

Lesley Riley, who developed TAP advises using white cotton with a high thread count but the results on my silk were excellent as well. Some others that I had done on cotton are shown in my previous post about image transfers

I have only tried white silk Dupion so far - however I imagine a pastel coloured silk  would look very pretty too.

Another way of getting an image on to silk Dupion is to adhere a piece of it to a sheet of freezer paper.  Here you can see the freezer paper and the silk rolled back with images which have been put through my Epson inkjet printer.



Freezer paper sheets are available in A4 size if you don't want to cut a piece from the roll and at least you will know they are very straight and exactly the right size.

In order to match up the piece of silk with the freezer paper I made a plastic template to draw around and then cut the silk a tiny fraction smaller so it wouldn't hang over the edge of the freezer paper and cause problems with the printer.  Make sure to leave no loose threads though as the printer may get these round the roller.

My Epson printer seen above has a straight feed through and when using the freezer paper method is probably less likely to cause problems than if using a printer which turns the paper over.

 This Canon printer shown here to the right takes the paper into the front and rolls it around the roller and turns it over.  I have found this works fine when printing on commercial cotton sheets backed with paper and also on the TAP sheets.

 A couple more tips on using the TAP sheets. You can print, draw or paint on the white side of the TAP.  They have a bluish tint on the reverse so you know which way to put them into the printer or which way to iron them on to the fabric.

 The first example shows a fairy that has been scanned in and printed on to the TAP, then after trimming off the surplus it has been ironed with a hot dry iron on to white cotton.

 You can see by the indentation in the cloth how the whole of the TAP sheet transfers firmly on to the fabric, so any surround not wanted should be trimmed off before ironing.

The other example shows that when it is ironed on to the fabric the image is reversed (silly me!) So if it is text or you want it to face in a particular direction reverse the image before putting it on to the TAP.  The top one was pencil and the lower one Sharpie pens.

Transferring Images to Fabric

There are a number of ways this can be done.

Photos can be edited on the computer and then printed on to sheets of cotton, linen, silk and organza backed with peel-off paper.

Images can be already on the computer, for example family and holiday photo.  But also other types of images can be scanned in as these artist's sketches of fairies were.

Fabric sheets are commercially available through web sites such as www.craftycomputerpaper.com and Rainbow Silks.  They are supplied singly or in packs of 50 and come in various sizes such as A4 and A3. These commercial sheets are treated in different ways.  Some have a washable finish, some have an adhesive so they can be stuck to a surface instead of being sewn on.

Then there is a product called Transfer Artists Paper (or TAP).  These were invented by a lady called Lesley Riley who has written books about how to use these sheets as well as a DVD demonstrating how to use them in making memory quilts.

The TAP has a special finish on one side that takes a printed or drawn images and once ironed with a hot dry iron transfers the image to the cotton fabric. Once the image is transferred and iron-fixed it can be washed.

For people with the ability to draw or paint the TAP is a lovely way to put your own artistic creation on to fabric.


A third option is to cut pieces of freezer paper to the size your printer can handle and iron these on to your own fabric making sure that the edges line up exactly and there are no loose threads to annoy the printer. This works well with silk and lightweight cottons. Here a piece of A4 paper is used to get the right size of freezer paper and then some fabric will be cut to the same shape and size and ironed to the waxy side before being fed through the printer.

These images are on a commercially available cotton or silk sheets which have had the backing peeled off ready to be sewn to a block for a quilt or to a cloth page for a Fabric Art Journal.

If your inkjet printer uses pigment ink there is no need to prepare the fabric in any special way.  Most printers do use pigment ink these days.  If you should have an old printer that has inks that dye the fabric then there is a product called Bubble Jet Set designed to prepare fabrics for printing so that the article with the image can be washed and will not fade.  However with modern inkjet printers and with commercially available fabric sheets it is unlikely you will need to bother with this type of preparation.

 This article will be continued ......