Cataloguing my fabric

I keep all my fabric in a massive really useful box to keep it all tidy and because im a bit short on space.

But it means that i cant always see or even remember what fabric ive got. I'd always check before buying new fabric so i didnt duplicate (short on space remember!) but i sometimes think it would be nice to be inspired by my fabrics so i decided to do a photo catalogue of it all.
I just took photos of each fabric and then saved them on my computer. That would probably be enough as i'm always on my computer but i thought a print out to store with the fabric as well would be good.
Luckily windows has a great print pictures function which allows you to print lots of photos together. Before i knew this i used to copy and paste everything into a word document!

So open windows explorer and select the all photos you want to print 

Once theyre all selected right click your mouse and select print

This will open Windows photo viewer

Select 'contact sheet (35)' and then hit print

Contact sheet prints your photos 35 to a page so theyre pretty small, you can choose different layout if you want them bigger

So i just popped my sheets on the top of my fabric box so i can easily look through and get inspired!

Print on fabric Update

So, as ive been posting about here, here and here, ive been trying to print on fabric using my home printer. The final issue i've been having has been fixing the ink. Heat didnt work so now i've tried pre-treating it instead.

I used bog standard fabric softener to pre-treat my fabric at 2 concentrations, neat and 50/50 with water. I just dunked my fabric in the fabric softener so it was all coated and then left it to dry. I printed directly onto the dried fabric and then washed the fabric (i used cold water in this test) to see if the ink stayed.

And i'm very pleased to report that it did :)

Both concentrations worked, i treated 2 bits of fabric for each concentration and ironed one aswell after i had printed on it, but that didnt seem to make any difference, in fact it may have been detrimental.

50/50 fabric softener and water, top piece unironed, bottom piece ironed

Neat fabric softener, top piece ironed, bottom piece unironed

The neat fabric softener made the fabric a bit crunchy after it had dried, it was fine once it had been washed though. But, as there doesnt seen to be a difference, i'll use the 50/50 mix in the future.

I think i need to check how well the ink stays after washing with warm water and soap, possibly even through the washing machine aswell, but im really happy with the results!

Print my own fabric continued....

So my first attempts at printing fabric are here and here.
The second attempt was successful but had some issues, mainly a dirty roller and an incomplete pattern. I fixed those and this is my new and improved printed fabric :)



Now the third issue was more difficult, how to make the ink permanent... So i thought i would try heat as my first option. I ironed one piece and left one un-ironed to see if there was any improvement in how permanent the ink was.
This is the before (ironed piece is on the right)


This is the after (ironed piece is on the right)

There wasnt really any difference, both inks washed off very easily in just cold water and no soap so definitely not permanent...

So a different solution needs to be found
I've had a look on t'internet and there's 3 options really
1. Use permanent ink - im not a fan of this as its expensive and id be using the ink for my regular printing as well, which would be a waste
2. Use some kind of fixative spray once its printed. Again not a fan of this, it's usually some kind of resin which makes the fabric a bit hard and crunchy. It would be fine for paper but isnt going to work on fabric.
3. Treat the fabric with a fixative solution before printing. There's a few different types of this available but i found a few websites that recommend trying neat (or 50/50 with water) fabric softener. I already have this in my cupboard so im going to give that a try next. If that doesnt work then i might look at some of the commercial fixatives
I'll keep you posted!

Print my own fabric

I posted about how to print on fabric before (original idea is from Creativity Exchange) and, because i was a bit skeptical whether it would work, i didnt really think about how to utilise it. I've also been searching for some better neutral (ie not cats or flowers a or cupcakes etc) patterned fabrics recently (can you see where this is going...). I see so many gorgeous fabrics on people's blogs but the majority are from the US so its not really practical to buy them. Ive found a few good online stores, and Ebay is of course an excellent source of most stuff, but i do like touching the fabric before i buy it. Which got me thinking 'is it possible to make my own?'

So I designed a basic flying bird pattern just using the shapes available in Microsoft word to try out. I cut out an A4 sheet of freezer paper, cut my fabric to match and then ironed them together. 

 Then I put the fabric through my inkjet printer.

For a first proper attempt i think it worked well. Theres 3 issues though. Firstly ive no idea why i didnt make my pattern a whole A4 page, i must have been interupted when i was doing it, i also need to remove the margins. Secondly there's some nasty black smudges at the top. My printer is pretty old so im hoping its nothing a good clean of the rollers wont fix. But third, and most crucial, the printer ink isnt waterproof as far as i can tell. I know you can buy waterproof printer ink but its expensive and, as i use my printer for normal printing too i'm not keen on swapping to it. I could potentially buy a separate printer but i'm not keen on spending money on this idea until im more confident with it. So further planning is required to get this to work...

Latest update here

Makes i like this week 23-April-12

Gorgeous quilt at sirbubbadoo

Hand printed tote at V&Co

Applique chevron hearts at sewing in no mans land

Beautiful thread pictures at Running with Scissors

Print on fabric

Now i never thought this would work if im honest! When i saw this post at The Creativity Exchange my first though was that would be amazing... if it works! But it did! In fact i was so dubious that i hadn't even planned anything to print onto the fabric. I just used this wire cross section diagram i had pinned from on Present and Correct earlier that day. But it worked brilliantly, my printer took the fabric fine and the quality if the print is excellent. Now i just have to think of some proper ideas on how to utilise it!

Update here

Another update here

Packaging Makes - ideas

I sell packaging in my etsy shop and ive been working on some ideas and makes relating to the packaging.
Some of the ones i found that i love are below

Paper bag lanterns

Stiched glassine bags

Printed paper bags

I might even make my own free printables like these