Direct to garment printing

DTG printers are mainly used to print t-shirts, tote-bags, aprons etc.  They are inkjet printers specifically designed to print to fabric.  For many years I made do with printing to fabric using my home inkjet printer, which works fine providing you have the right sort of printer, or if not, use pre-treated fabric, and, don’t mind putting up with the size limitations.  The print areas of DTG printers vary depending on whether they are single or double platen machines.  The one I use is a double platen and can print up to 45cm x 60cm.

I have just completed this cushion for a client who wanted a very special flower (it looked like a white daisy to me but apparently not!) printed onto grey fabric with a quote about sisters. I extracted the flower from the background in Photoshop, resized and rotated it and added the text.  One of the good things about the DTG process is that it provides photographic reproduction, so you can incorporate all the sorts of photographic effects (drop shadow, bevel and emboss, strokes etc) that you can’t use if you are say using a thermofax or other screen printing process.

This is now on its way across to the other side of the world – I hope she likes it!

 

You can see a bigger range of examples of DTG printed cushions on my website http://hilarymetcalfdesigns.com/.  Remember, if you can create or capture a digital image, you can print it, with photographic quality, onto fabric.

Small things

I like making small things – they are quick, no big investment in time or materials and very satisfying.  You can sort of work in a series doing lots of small things in a row to work through an idea.  These cards bring together my love of working with rusted fabric, snippets from my embroidery and a few new techniques.  Although not a scrapbooker, I have recently peered into that world and discovered a thing or two that is handy.  A Cutttlebug paper embosser for one, that allows me to add some embossed detail to cards to combine with lace and bits. The last two cards have been embossed.

The numbers 3 and 9 and the ‘@’ were all cut with a an electronic stencil cutter – these are way too much fun and have great potential for surface design.

This little card was inspired by Helen Smith’s work.   I don’t have the sort of printing press that she does, but after a bit of research discovered the Cuttlebug – lots of fun! Technically I think what she did is called collograph printing, whereas I embossed – suspect there is a subtle difference there, but don’t know enough about it!