I've been working with printing pictures on fabric as part of my new direction for my art. One of the issues in doing this is stabilizing the fabric so it will feed smoothly through the printer. I've traditionally used freezer paper, ironed to the back of the fabric, but this has always had a certain failure rate due to lack of adhesion of the fabric, the printer head ruffling the edges of the fabric, and just a tendency to slipping. Now that I'm doing photos rather than just some clip art, and I'm using the photo setting on my printer, these tendencies to problems have gotten worse. Someone on the inkjet transfer yahoo group suggested full size labels instead. So, I tried them out. They certainly feed better, but there's a tendency to distort the fabric when the label is peeled off. I also found a noticeable adhesive residue on the silk that was printed with the full size label.
Below are 2 images of pieces done each way. The top fabric in each picture was ironed to freezer paper. The bottom fabric was printed using the full size label.
This is the fabric straight out of the printer with the stabilizers still attached. Notice the darker edges on the freezer paper one which is where the fabric crumbled somewhat.
This second shot is after removing the stabilizers. Notice the curling on the one done with the full size label. I fixed this problem somewhat with some ironing but you should keep in mind that ironing too soon after printing can degrade the image.
Next time, I'll be trying printing on fabric with wonder-under as a stabilizer as I usually fuse it anyway...
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