craftgrrl | (no subject) (Reply)

I made some placemats today, transferring a vintage rooster image onto the fabric.

I'm placing a tutorial

I used a medium weight pure undyed cotton for these. I don't know if you can transfer an image onto fabrics other than pure cotton using this method, you'd have to try to find out.

Decide how big you want your placemats to be and cut out your fabric (two pieces for each placemat), adding an inch for seams. I used this rusty right angled ruler to draw out my rectangle. It's supposed to used for carpentry but it's my new favourite tool to use when I need to draw perfect 90 degree angles when sewing.

Sew a half inch from edge all around placemat leaving an opening about 3 inches wide.

Clip the corners.

Turn placemat right side out and poke your corners out really well. I use the end of a small paintbrush to do this.

Give your placemat a really good press, making sure your seams are perfectly turned and straight. Sew your three inch gap open by hand.

Topstitch all around the placemat, 3/8 ths of an inch from the edges.

Now comes the super funnest part.

Find an image you want to use for your project. You will need to reverse the image produce a mirror image) especially if it contains print or your image will be transferred backwards. I used photoshop to flip the image. Print the image using a photocopier that uses toner, not ink. If you don't use a copy developed with toner, this is not going to work.

You will need to buy Citrasolv the bottle on the very left shown on that link. It comes in orange and lavender, it doesn't matter which you buy, just as long as it's the concentrate.

Lay down a bunch of layers of newspaper and put your placemat on top of that. The newspaper will absorb any moisture and act as a cushion while you're working with your image. Pour out a very small amount of Citrasolv into a dish. Whatever is unused can be poured back into the bottle.

Using a tape measure or ruler, center your image on the placemat. Make sure that it's vertically and horizontally centered. You should be able to see the image through the wrong side of the paper well enough to do this. Once you are sure it's level and centered, tape the photocopy down, making sure that the tape isn't touching any of the image, or whatever part of the image is covered with tape won't transfer.

I didn't photograph this next step because it needs to be done quickly and I was home alone except for my cats who don't have thumbs.

Dip a small paintbrush into the Citrasolv and brush the liquid all over the image. Go really easy on the quantity of the Citrasolv or you will get a completely blurred image - you don't need much. You may want to do a test on scrap fabric (highly recommended) to see how little or how much you should be using.

As soon as you touch the brush to your photocopy, your image will immediately appear. It's going to look blurry, but don't panic, that's normal. Once you have gone over the entire image with the paintbrush, take a spoon and using the back of it, rub it all over the image for about three minutes without stopping.

It's not a good idea to peel back the photocopy and check to see what's going on during the process until that three minutes are up because you are most likely not going to set it down exactly right and your image will blur.

Peel off the photocopy and see the magic!