Ever since I took a class from Susan Brandeis http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brandeis/ at the U of Minneapolis in 2009 as part of the Splitrock Summer Arts Program, I've been wanting to make another quilt from one of my pictures enhanced through the magic of photoshop. So finally, last week I played with this picture of rust on metal.
I played with it in photoshop until I created something I liked and then I enlarged the image to approximately three times its size. I printed it out onto nine, 8" x 10" pieces of treated fabric for printing (I especially like Betty's Photos on Fabric cotton Twill) http://www.bettysphotosonfabric.com/ and then sewed them together. The sewing didn't go as smoothly as I wanted due to some of the pieces printing out too close to the edge on four sections. I had to fuse additional fabric strips to those, so I would have enough of a seam allowance. The fabric must have moved a bit in going through the printer. Here's the sewn together version.
In Susan's class I made the quilt below, using the same methods, but only doubled the size. It was printed on four pieces of silk, I hand-sewed together. I also printed a leaf on organza as an overlay. I then embroidered and beaded it.
Here's the original photo that inspired it.
Do you have a favorite pre-treated fabric you like for printing? What about any tips for "tiling" photos using a Mac and Photoshop, or even even using Spoonflower or another commercial fabric printer. I tried to work with Spoonflower's website to find out how much it would cost to enlarge one photo to approximately a yard but couldn't figure out how to upload the image without them thinking I wanted zillions of reprints of the same pic. Has anyone else tried using them to print one enlarged image? Maybe you'd be so kind to share your tips with me. They tried to help me with some info via email, but I just didn't get what they were saying. Sometimes technology and I don't see eye to eye.
Wishing all my readers a very happy Thanksgiving!
Hi Jeanne ~ I haven't used Spoonflower so no advice there. My favorite thing to do with fabric to digitally print on is to use Bubble Jet Set 2000 instead of buying pretreated fabric. Doing it with BJS, I've printed on muslin, flannel, raw silk, silk organza, rayon, linen, cotton/rayon blend, and probably other fabrics. It's the only way to go IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how long you've been following my blog, so I'm emailing you several photos of digital-image quilts. Definitely email me back if you want any more info on what I did.
Have a great day!
Connie