Hello Diana Rambles readers, I'm Ren Murphy. You can usually find me at The Inspired Wren where I share inspired sewing, crochet, and craft projects. Today, I’m here to show you how to elevate a basic skirt from simple to special with customized, self-printed fabric.
I adore all the outfits featuring border print fabrics that I see around the bloggiverse. But I tend to see the same few prints repeatedly. And when I find a border print in a store to purchase it's inevitably one of those frequent fabrics. I was in the market for something unique, graphic, and short (skirt rather than dress). So I decided to make my own. With my ink jet printer.
Quick Tutorial for Printing on Fabric:
I adore all the outfits featuring border print fabrics that I see around the bloggiverse. But I tend to see the same few prints repeatedly. And when I find a border print in a store to purchase it's inevitably one of those frequent fabrics. I was in the market for something unique, graphic, and short (skirt rather than dress). So I decided to make my own. With my ink jet printer.
Quick Tutorial for Printing on Fabric:
- Choose your fabric carefully. I've had success on muslin and on quilting cotton with a rougher hand (feel). I've had failure with gauze and, surprisingly, with a very smooth quilting cotton.
- Iron the fabric onto freezer paper; for exact edges, iron the paper and the fabric together and then trim them together to the desired size; fold the paper over the bottom/feed-edge of the fabric by approximately 1" and iron flat to help feed the paper into the printer. Iron again -- you really want to be sure all edges are secure. The paper will still easily peel right off after printing.
- Set your paper size manually to the width and length your printer will tolerate and you desire (on my system: Printer Properties > Advanced > Paper Qualities & Options > User Defined [size]). My current printer is limited to 8.5" wide, and up to 44" long. But! Remember to leave yourself seam-allowance. For this skirt I used the image horizontally, but you can also run the image vertically and piece panels together for longer, wider fabric as I did for this map-covered beach robe.
- Be sure to do a test piece and then wash it as you would the final garment/project. My trusty-Epson ink on muslin holds up well in the washing machine and dryer. Seriously. That doesn't mean your combination of ink and fabric will do the same, so please do your own test.
I created this skirt fabric by repeating a clip-art silhouette of flowers across an image that was set to my final print size. Got that? Once my new fabric was successfully off the printer I sewed it into a mash-up Oliver + S Lazy Days Skirt plus Go To Leggings. Paired with a ribbon-embellished Practically Perfect Tee by Muse of the Morning, it makes a kicky little outfit.
Now that you know how to print large-scale at home think of the possibilities: family portraits on muslin wrapped around a basic frame, children's artwork on a tote (without transfer paper!), your favorite vacation sunset on a throw pillow, the possibilities are endless. If you use this technique I'd love to see what you create; please come add to the Share page link parties at The Inspired Wren.
Thanks for having me today, Diana, it's a privilege.
Come stop by The Inspired Wren and have a look around. You'll see I publish a new tutorial on the First Tuesday of every month, and I host Inspire Us Thursday: Sew Needle Stitch Hook, a weekly link party dedicated to fiber. In between I also share what I've been creating, provided I have enough chocolate to pay my model (and daughter), The Peanut.
Need even more? You can also find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr.
Ren Murphy writes for The Inspired Wren.
