A Snazzy Little Handbag

Sometimes things are so obvious that it may take us awhile to recognize them.

I started with dye sublimation printing because you could print on things like mugs, tiles, and cutting boards -- any of a large number of items with specially coated surfaces that will bond with dye sublimation inks using heat and pressure.

It's that whole "specially coated surfaces" thing... it took me awhile to grok that the special coating was a polymer coating. The "poly" was the clue... it suddenly occurred to me one day, that must mean you could print onto polyester fabrics!

I hastened to my local Hancock's Fabric shop and bought a couple yards of white polyester satin, and gave it a try.

It has not been disappointing! The images bond right into the fabric, and they are extraordinarily vivid. They do not affect the feel of the fabric at all -- it retains the same soft hand and satiny shiny smoothness as before it was printed.

So far I've made pillows and purses. Here is a little sparkler of a purse that I finished recently, complete with fractal printed pattern, sequin trim and a gold chain strap.

Quilt Squares From Photographs

Welcome to my Studio!

I hope you will enjoy sharing my creative journey.

It delights me to be able to take a photograph of a beautiful flower, download it to my computer, edit in in Photoshop, and then use it to create a lovely item of home décor. I use both standard ink jet printing as well as dye sublimation printing to transfer images to a variety of materials.

These are quilt squares that I printed using an Epson ink jet printer. I used specially treated cotton fabric available from Color Plus Fabrics to print these images directly onto the cotton, then incorporated them into a quilt using solids and prints that picked up the colors in the flowers.

Using direct printing gives a more vivid and detailed image than printing onto transfer paper and using an iron or heat press to transfer the imageto the fabric. It also results in a more natural "hand" to the fabric with the image. Quilts, of course, should always be comfortable as well as beautiful!

The finished quilt was a throw size, about 45" x 60". It looks like a mini flower garden that has been brought inside.