Inkjet Printing on Fabric

Forget about printing on some transfer paper and then ironing it onto some fabric. With some freezer paper you can print right on the fabric itself. No need to reverse the image and it's faster, cheaper, and more effective.

Step 1: Materials List

Cloth? Check.
Freezer paper? Check.

Step 2: Cut to Size

Cut a piece of fabric a little bit bigger than the 8.5"x11" that your printer can handle. Or, if you have a bigger printer, go bigger.

Cut the freezer paper to an even larger size to give you a nice margin of error here.

Step 3: Iron Together

Place the working side of the fabric onto the ugly old ironing board you have lying around. Now place the plastic side of the freezer paper down on that.

In other words, the working surface is safely facing the bottom and the paper side of the freezer paper is facing you. Now iron it together. The two pieces will become one.

Step 4: Cut to Size - Part 2

Trim the combined fabric paper to something your printer can accept. For me, that's letter-size. For my friend, who bought a massive Epson printer while flush with cash, that could be two-feet by whatever.

Step 5: Stick it In

You now have a piece of fabric that is supported by the attached piece of freezer paper. This makes the resulting combination solid enough to be grabbed by the printer without flopping about. Treat the finished piece like a regular piece of paper and stick it into an inkjet printer. My printer flips the paper over and then prints on it so I placed the piece in the tray with the fabric side down.

Step 6: Print!

Find some image you want on a piece of fabric and print away. You'll be surprised at the level of detail. This Instructables logo in the picture is just over two inches wide.

You can print anything you want. I found this technique because a friend wanted to create some treasure maps for a pirate party. If you want the image to be on something that will get a lot of use you might want to treat it with this stuff.

Comments

[craftyv]

Great Instructable: Now I can print my Cross-stitch charts onto my fabric But???????? How will I line it up to exactly match the stitch holes, oh well back to the drawing board.

[fungus amungus]

You'd probably want to do a transfer with a solvent. Like this one:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Fabric-Printing-with-Citra-Solv/

[louise nevelson]

I was needing to print on fabric one night and realized i did not have any freezer paper on hand so i tried another method on a whim and was happy to see it work perfectly. For those of you who are out of freezer paper (or had trouble finding it) . . if you happen to have quilt basting spray on hand just mist a light layer over a sheet of regular printer paper and smooth your fabric over top. no need to iron even . . . Voila!

[Foil_is_Shiny]

Thank you soooo much for posting this! I totally forgot you could use freezer paper to stiffen the fabric. I was going to use double side tape underneath and regular clear tape around all the edges before I saw this. Awesome tutorial!

[mattstroud]

Ok this looks pretty cool but i'm a bit confused. How would i print directly onto a T-shirt? As far as i can tell wouldn't you still need to transfer it from that print?

[gomsmo]

Sadly, these are far from colorfast. You cannot use this technique with anything you plan to wear or wash. Not a good technique for quilts or...Still looking for ways to make the fabric colorfast without having to buy the chemicals designed to make the fabric colorfast. Maybe something you can find in your home...maybe.

[ngshuert]

This is a while later on the inkjet printing. Look to Dharma Trading Company. What makes it workable is the preparation of the fabric. The are two products one to make the fabric to fix the print and one to hold the fabric stiff to go through the printer. When you use a inkjet ink that is a dye base it is much more durable. And the products are getting better every day.

[mickey_chelle]

does anyone know if this will work with a laser printer ?
Dont want to mess up my printer - its a big professional laser printer I use to print business cards on.

[thasshia]

As you see, the title is: "INKJET printing on fabric". So, the answer is "no".
It only works with inkjet printers.

[mattbreeding]

I can testify to this method and it works very well. We have an HP inkJet printer (nothing special, $100 or so). One word of caution... the ink WILL run if it gets wet.

[amethysteria]

If you try different inks, you might find that they don't run. The other option is to get some stuff that sets dye.

[dancin2nite]

This is great! I am going to use it to recover a phone case. Print it out on fabric, and glue it and varnish it afterwards with ModPodge! My own personalized phone case!

[Happy Longarmer]

Enjoyed reading all the preceding comments & will definitely try using TACKY or STICKY PAPER as recommended by a couple of you. I have been printing on fabric using freezer paper for several years. I pretreat my fabric with Bubble Jet Set and use Bubble Jet Rinse after printing to fix the ink. These products are available from quilt shops. I use these products to create labels for the backs of the quilts I make and include information about the quilt such as pattern name, why I chose it, type of batting used (wool?), washing directions and sentiments if it is being given as a gift for someone.

Caryl Bryer Fallert (a world renown quilter) has written an excellent book "Quilt Savvy-Fallert's Guide to Images on Fabric." She 'makes' her own fabric from images of flowers and photos. She uses the Bubble Jet Set & Rinse products and explains everything step by step with excellent photos.

[Alamo Jo]

Thanks for the name of the book. I just bought one on Amazon for less than 4.00 and less than 4.00 shipping. They have many from verious sellers at that price.

[deathsmileyinc]

OMG ive never heard or seen freezer paper! i dont have it at home neither does the shops (here in holland)

could i use something else? could someone describe freezer paper ( it could be lag of translation)

[Alamo Jo]

I'll add that freezer paper is not exactly wax paper as some have noted. It has a thin plastic coating on the shiny side. At least the Reynolds brand is plastic.

[Alamo Jo]

Freezer paper is white and is shiny on one side and looks like regular paper on the other side. Sometimes a butcher shop wraps meats in that kind of white paper. We can buy rolls of it at stores like Walmart here in the US and some grocery stores. But I imagine a nice butcher would sell you some off his roll...maybe even give you some. When you iron it onto fabric, put the shiny side against the fabric.

[bwlservs]

wax paper

[katiebegood]

Not the same. Won't work.

[GIJo]

Hi, I live in Holland too and found it in my local patchwork shop (http://www.desampler.nl/). They are in Haarlem, I don't know where you are but maybe you could find it in your local area too... just look for any patchwork or quilting supplier.

I have tried it and think it's great. The only problem is you are limited to the size of paper your printer can take... wish I had bought an A3 printer ;-)

Enjoy

[deathsmileyinc]

thanks for the info, i live near haarlem and i will check out the store next time ill be there.

for printing on A3 paper i recommend checking out some schools, copy shops can be really expensive, at my school we have to make a lot of drawing on the computer using A3 paper you ill be using there printer for bigger images.

i hope i helped you.

[woodlandpoppy]

Freezer paper is used to wrap foods for freezing. It comes in a roll from the food store, and is next to plastic wrap, wax paper and aluminum foil. It has a food-grade wax on only one side of the paper. You can also use masking tape folded around the leading edge of the paper to hold a piece of fabric on. Keep googling for other methods if you cannot find the paper.

[Tony5]

There's no translation, Freezer paper ispaper on one side and wax on the other. You probabilly dont have in your country. Just sew a paper sheet withthe fabric

[wocket]

what a great idea!

[emilyrosevintage]

I have tried this several times and my printer seems to cut off half the image for some reason. I am using patterned fabric but can't see that that would be a problem and it prints the same image fine onto paper?? Anyone know why!

[jse]

Of all places, I found freezer paper at Kmart...

[debzi]

This is brilliant if you want to make a stuffed toy etc. It doesnt matter that the ink wont stay on after washing. Its perfect to use to cut out the fabric pieces without the hassle of tracing or pinning favric to a pattern Also ace for applique pieces. Simply print, cut out and then remove paper. saves heaps of time. fabuloose!

[ngshuert]

I have a couple of bits of info that may be useful. (1) Kodak ink jet ink is more like a dye then the typical ink. may last a little better and maybe a lot. I need to test this as I can afford it.....Next. Dharma Trading Company. Fabrics and Dye have stuff to paint on any fabric for ink jet printing so it is cleanable and a Stiff material that you iron on but is peel-able after so it will go through the printer with that combo type of ink jet doesn't matter. And if canvas is ok you can buy it ready to go in pack at the office supplies. I've been researching this for a while but haven't jumped into the middle yet.

[Cilenia]

Make sure you wash your fabric first to remove any sizing from manufacturer, this will help your printer's ink absorb better and stay longer. Heat set after with hot cotton setting on your iron also.

[Cilenia]

OH make sure you heat set AFTER you take off the freezer paper backing!

[Cilenia]

Set your iron to a low cotton or 5-6 setting and no steam. Only takes a few seconds to adhere.

[nwreck]

What setting is your iron on?

Thanks

[fungus amungus]

Hmm, been a long time since I did this. Can't remember, sorry.

[kristineH]

Would I be able to use a knit fabric for this method?

Sorry if someone already asked...there are so many questions!!!
Thanks~!!

[enibley]

do you know if the colors will bleed if i glue this fabric on to wood or tile?

thanks for your help

[mweiss2]

Thank you I can't wait to get started!!

[nikolaj5]

hi, i have printed in black with my inkjet printer, left it for drying at least 24 hours, it faded a bit after washing. then i tried the same with colour printout, left it drying even longer, however, the colours washed nearly completely away. who has an idea, how i could make the colours stay? i tried with vinegar with the black version, it made no difference. i did not yet try the vinegar with the colours. does it really help? thanks for any idea. the printouts are really great, i would like it to stay that way even after washing. regards

[kpotassium]

Or maybe iron on a hot setting...

[kpotassium]

Try washing it with salt - salt makes dyes colour-fast apparently! That's what you are instructed to use when dying fabrics. Not sure of the ratio though. Good luck!

[pinklightning_22]

Do you think this method will print on silk? Thanks!