Basic Fabric Printing

My fabric journal is starting to come along nicely, and I thought I’d share it’s progress, and a few techniques along the way. I’ve designed the cover with an openwork front and back cover which shows through to the next page—the ‘inside cover’. This printed fabric will be the back of the openwork cover and the background for the front of the inside cover.

Ingredients:

• Base Fabric
• Fabric Paints (I used Pebeo Setacolour in Chamois, Shimmer light copper and Shimmer Gold)
• Item to print with (I used a sponge, some newspaper, and some bubblewrap)
• An iron

I started with that same commercial fabric I was using for the Puff Paint Experiment. This is it’s unaltered state:

My first task was to ‘muddy it up’ so to speak. Basically, I wanted to take a dark colour in the same family as the fabric (in this instance the Chamois—which is more like a brown) and sponge it across the fabric to obliterate most of the print of the fabric. I used a rather subtle printed fabric to start with, so this task was not difficult.

Next, I crumpled up a bit of newsprint and added light touches of the Simmer light copper paint all over the fabric.

For my final layer of paint, I brayered some of the Simmer Gold onto a piece of bubble wrap and printed that onto the fabric, repeating until I was happy with the results. Anything that can print a bold image will work, I just really happen to like the look of printed bubble wrap.

Now usually you should wait about 12 hours and then fix with an iron according to the instructions, however if you are using a fabric that won’t melt under a heat gun, a couple minutes under the heat gun (always moving the heat gun…. don’t just keep it in one spot) will dry the paint enough that you can iron fix it, always remembering to use a pressing cloth over top.

I printed four of these pieces. Two of them will remain as you see them an become the back side of the front openwork cover. The other two will become the background of the subsequent page, which I’ll post tomorrow. :)