Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while, know a little of the insanity that was the preparations for the CHA show and my display for the Designer's Showcase. I wanted to take a little time to share a little gem of a discovery I made during that process. It's a printable fabric called "Pabric."
Many of the projects that I made were created with this material. It printed fabulously and was wonderful to work with. Pabric is not machine washable, but can be either spot cleaned with a damp cloth or dry cleaned so making a clothing item probably wouldn't be practical, but for decor, the sky is the limit! You can find Pabric at www.pabric.com
The photo album and journal were purchased items that I covered with Pabric Creative which is a heavier weight fabric that has a slight vinyl feel to it and is perfect for these applications. I used ribbon to cover the joints and printed a matching cardstock page to use inside the covers and they looked as though I purchased them!
The Wall hanging will be a kit in the near future, but I still need to adapt the project to standard 8.5 x 11" sheets (I used a 16" roll pabric trimmed to 13" to fit through my Epson wide format printer.
The pillow below also will be a kit, though I will probably make it into a square so it's easier to find a pillow form. When sewing for home decor uses, the pabric is a little stiff and really is meant for decorative use only (I don't think I would use it to really cuddle up with!) Hand stitching the seams closed took a little bit of effort, but was worthwhile when it was done.
One of my goals in making these projects was to hopefully attract a fabric company to license with… and it worked! I will have a line of quilting fabrics by later this year. I'll keep you posted!
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO ALL!
Audrey Jeanne Roberts
That pillow is adorable. My Mom likes to sew and prints on fabric. I’ll have to show her your pillow as it is lovely!
Cyndy
Oh Audrey… that is way COOL… can’t wait to see the fabric.
Hi Audrey:
I wanted to find out if you do printing for other people. I recently had my local graphics guy scan some pictures for me that will make a 12×12 block, but there is no one in my area or anywhere that I know of who can print them on fabric. They will be going in a quilt for my dad for his 75th birthday in October. It will be a wall hanging or a bed quilt, but not to be used so it needs washing. I see that you stated these prints cannot be laundered.
Please let me know if you do printing for others, but if not could you refer someone who does. I’d love to get started on this as the months go by so fast and unlike many, many other quilt projects I have going, I’d love to actually give this to him on his birthday.
Thank you so much for your time.
Turia
(Turia, if you google printable fabric washable quite a few possibilities come up. You might also want to check out your local quilt shop if you have one, they almost certainly will carry printable fabric and so might Joanne’s fabrics if you have a store near you. You might also check out http://www.pabric.com and see if they have added any washable fabrics yet, I believe that they were developing some for the future. Good luck and have fun! AJ)