Handmade Monday - Designs on Fabric

What a morning.  Woke up feeling like death warmed up (nothing new, I am allergic to mornings).  Then, over my first cup of coffee and a swift peruse of early morning tweets, I discovered  

Handmade Monday

 An opportunity to find lots of other crafty folk, and find out what they've been up to.  I know, I know.... it's another time-waster.  But what a lovely one!  So, without any further ado - this is my handmade effort to join in.  And I've made it on a Monday!  (Am now left to figure out how to actually link along with everyone else - that may take me some time).

 Designs on Fabric

I'm a wee bit excited today.  

How many of us dream of creating our own fabrics?  

Squeal!!!!

Albeit in a micro-printing sort of way - I now can.

  
I have discovered the range of printable fabrics from Crafty Computer Papers  Up to now I've fiddled about with t-shirt transfer paper.  This is okay for very small designs, but oh - how the stuff doesn't want to behave itself and wrinkles at every opportunity!  Now - I've a whole range of fabric sheets to choose from.  Oh the possibilities!

The sheets are available in A4 and A3 sizes.  I'm lucky enough to have both size printers, but was wary of splashing out too much cash in case the fabric didn't live up to it's hype.  Therefore, I've started off by ordering a sample pack of each fabric type in A4 size.  Some are washable, some iron-on, some repositionable (for wall stickers), and there's even organza and silk.

This morning's experiment has been with a sheet of cotton lawn.  ***A play around with a design package (much more of this later - something else to be excited about, and a great giveaway in the very near future.  Just finding my way around the design software, and it looks very promising indeed!) 

I placed the sheet into the printer with a certain amount of trepidation. ( Last week I attempted my own version using a combo of freezer paper and fabric.  The resulting mess - a definitely "don't try this at home" cry.  Took me a good half hour to extricate the tangled mush of paper and threads from the roller.)  There is no need to add fancy printer settings, the instructions said to treat as normal paper so that's what I did.  Okay - so I closed my eyes after I pressed the print button, and crossed my fingers.  You know what....... it worked!

One precious little sheet of .....drum roll please........ my very own designer fabric.  It's mine, all mine!
Featuring a grey check background, with fabric flowers, floral buttons, ric-rac, stitching and ribbon.
Not bad at all for a first play-about (and pretty darn marvelous seeing how I've only had one cup of coffee this morning). 

I can see such possibilities.  The A4 sheet is just the right size to make a needle case with.  With the sheets working out at just over a £1 each, it does mean you have to be pretty sure about what you're printing.  My head is whirring with ideas now!  I've a huge selection of vintage postcards which I can now scan and print perfectly.  I'm thinking text, shabby chic patches to use in applique.  Oh!

And - I've still got all the other fabrics to try!  I can definitely recommend the cotton lawn.  It glided through the printer without the slightest hiccup.  Will blog again when I discover how the others perform.

Whoop, whoop! 

*** I was asked if I would review a software design package.  Can't say more at the moment, as I need to be sure it works.  I downloaded it yesterday, and the early results are looking good.  Easy to use, navigate and print.  This design was my first effort, and I know I can improve on it an awful lot.  I was so eager to get something printed, it was a quick case of click, click, click, done.  In the next few days, I shall be finding my way around the software so that I can do a decent summary of it in blog-form.  Best bit about this....  There will be a giveaway of the software!  So please follow me, to be able to take part.