I'll admit, I'm pretty impressed with TAP or Transfer Artist Paper (affiliate link), used to create my super fun The Second Life of Quilts project!
Images are crisp, clear, and vibrant, better than printing directly on fabric, and even on paper. Transferring was easy too - just had to make sure I reversed images and ironed long enough. But yet to be tested is it's colorfastness and crinkling properties when washed. Once I do that, then I can really be a huge fan.
So, here's a few tips I learned before running TAP through the ink jet printer, and transferring to fabric. Some are highlights from two videos,
How to Use TAP Transfer Artist Paper,
How to Use TAP Transfer Artist Paper with Fabric,
and others are my own observations. I totally recommend watching the videos to make sure of how the printing and transfer the process works. Certainly don't want to misprint or goof up a fused image and waste this product!
Here's a couple things I learned:
for image processing,
- make images and lettering in reverse
- fit as much as possible onto the page before printing
- think about what color/print of fabric the image will look best on as TAP is transparent, allowing the background to come through on the image
TAP itself,
- trim away as much blank space of TAP as possible before transferring to avoid image-free excess TAP from discoloring the background
- protect the transferred TAP image with a piece of fabric or silicon sheet from the hot iron
- be sure to press, with a hot, hot iron, for the required amount of time for complete image transfer
- if the image doesn't completely transfer, keep ironing till it does
- excess clear TAP can be removed by ironing over with a scrap fabric piece or a silicon sheet
- TAP images can be ironed over as long as there is fabric or a silicon sheet covering the transferred image
- a matte finish is achieved by removing the paper while still very warm. A glossy finish happens when peeling the paper from a cold image.
Let's talk about image processing. For The Second Life of Quilts, the three black sports icon images were reworked in Photoshop to all have patchwork in their sails. I'm not a pro at image manipulation, and it took a few Photoshop video lessons to achieve what I wanted, but I got there.
Once the images were done, I moved into Word, creating the lettering and testing out different fonts (there are 2). Then resizing everything to get it all to fit on one piece of paper, with a couple of print tests to check image size and such.
The above is the normal printing orientation, so that I could do a test run of the quilt layout.
Once I was happy with that, I made sure to reverse all images and double check, because TAP requires all lettering to be in reverse so that when it's transferred (ironed on), the words read correctly.
When that sheet came out of the ink jet printer, I was super impressed with the print quality on TAP - wow! And with that, I planned my attack.
First, I wanted the sail colors to stay vibrant and not get muted by the blue background. So, I cut the images apart, trimming away excess white TAP, and leaving just enough to keep some pieces connected.
The colorful sail portions were transferred onto white fabric,
then a 1/4" of fusible was applied to the backside edges, with the front image protected by another piece of fabric.
Once cut out, they were fused, again with a piece of fabric on top of the image so that it didn't transfer to the iron.
There was a bit of stickiness peeling away the fabric, but the image remained intact. Adding in the black images required covering the fused image,
and lots of hot iron pressing,
for a great transfer!
The final result is a transfer with a slight sheen to it, and up close, it looks like it's been inked into the fabric. The hand is soft, though the appliqued sails, which are double fabric, are stiffer. And it was well worth cutting away as much excess TAP as possible, as there is a very slight value change on the background. If you look really hard, you can see a line between this guy's knees, though it's barely noticeable. So far, two thumbs up for TAP!
Someday I'll dream up another project using TAP, (affiliate link) with the plan to wash the item. I'm curious to see how images hold up - I'll keep you posted!
Happy Quilting!
What happens to old, retired quilts? Why, they find a useful, purposeful second life, such as any of these three possibilities!
Yes, any quilt can find a new, second life as a parachute, a hang gliding sail, or as the sail for a windsurfer! Certainly a perfect fit - just make sure to mend any holes!
Did this make you chuckle? Hope so! Welcome to my day of the Making Us Laugh Blog Hop hosted by Joan of MooseStash Quilting.
All of the images were transferred with TAP or transfer artist paper (affiliate link), which was not only really easy to use, but provided great transferred images. Can you tell I had a lot of fun? Weee!
I was lucky to find the perfect background fabric in the stash - a blue ombre, grading from the sky
down to sea.
Notice the sails are appliqued on. That's because I wanted them to keep their vibrant colors and not get muted by the background blue, which is something to consider when using TAP (affiliate link). I'll have more on working with TAP, (affiliate link) and how I did the applique part on Monday's post.
And did you also notice the border? See any seams?
This is a 'picture frame border', a technique I learned from Noriko Endo's class in Houston. I actually remembered how to do it, and very happy with how it turned out. There's a tutorial coming on making this picture frame border next week!
I hope you've enjoyed this fun little project, and that it made you think about your quilt's second lives. I know I have a couple that would work great for sails!
Happy Quilting!
I'm working on a really charming Christmas project using fusible feather pieces,
and because I'm making several blocks, I want the pieces to be identical across the blocks, especially that big plaid feather.
While arranging the feather on the plaid for the most attractive orientation before fusing it down, I devised a way to have all the other #3 pieces look the same. I just needed to make some aligning marks on the yet-to-be-fused pieces.
In the above picture, the first piece is fused down - there's just a little bit of the paper showing at the feather point. On top of that is another piece of fusible, with paper backing up and aligned with the fused pieced. Little tic marks near the T's correspond with the lines of the fabric.
Now all I need to do is find where that pattern repeats in the fabric, line up the marks, and fuse.
I got lucky with this fabric that the pattern repeat was such that I don't have a big piece of swiss cheese leftover. Can't say that for the green with white snowflakes piece - the repeat was widely spaced. But it's the consistency I want for the pattern pieces, so I'm willing to put up with holes in a fat quarter!
Now that the tic marks on the pieces are aligned with the fabric and fused, all that's left is to cut them out,
and finish my project, which is coming on Monday for the Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop hosted by Carla of Creatin' In the Sticks. Ultimately, I'll be gifting this project to a dear friend - hope she likes it!
Happy Quilting!
My Favorite Patterns
The last of the five T-shirt quilts is pieced!
They still need borders, as I wanted to assess how much fabric I had left before putting them on. Plus, I have little bits and pieces left that will go in the borders too.
But this post is all about how these quilts were put together, providing ideas for making one. My technique involves
1) having more than enough fabric (so there's no worry about being short),
2) designing a layout that's interesting, taking advantage of different sized blocks,
3) lining up some seams for ease in assembly,
4) being creative as the top is put together,
5) and having no fear to cut different sized strips!
The first step in this process is the shirts. The logos are cut out with plenty of space around them, at least 4 inches. Taking care to use a press cloth on the logos so that the paint/ink doesn't get on the iron, a lightweight fusible interfacing is applied to the backside to help control the stretchy knit. Leaving a 2-3 inch border around the logo, the shirts are trimmed and squared without being overly concerned about size consistency. I ended up with four different size ranges - large, medium (more wide than tall), small (approximately 6" square), and a couple short and wide pieces.
Now time for the layout. Loosely using a 46" x 72" layout size, the shirts were arranged in a pleasing arrangement, with small, medium, and large pieces distributed evenly to fit within the space.
Shirts were lined up in some areas to make sewing the sashing easier. See the white lines in the pictures below.
If a shirt didn't fall on one of the sashing seam lines, it just needs to have strips added to it to bring it up to size.
Now to start sewing. I chose simple blocks that added interest, but didn't become the focus of the quilt. The four patches at the top complement the small logos, while helping to increase the size of block for that area.
This block is still small, and needs more sashing to bring up the size. Keeping design in mind to distribute color and interest, more sashing was added to the sides.
It's still just a wee bit small, so one more sashing strip goes on the sides. Notice that I am just sewing a strip and then cutting the extra length off. This is a much easier process than measuring the strip to length, and then sewing.
Now the top and bottom sashing gets added so that the new 'block' fits the shirt to the right. I'm not worried about the shirt to the left, as a sashing strip at the bottom of my newly created unit will fill in the space.
Time to move to the next section, that within the circle.
Again, keeping design, color, and interest in mind, black strips are laid out to see how they look in the space. The blue pieces on the edges of these black strips are the longer sashing strips mentioned above.
I'm pleased with this idea. Now I just need to figure out what width is needed for the blue strips in between. The gap measures 2 1/2", and 1/2" is added on each side for seam allowances. That's very important to remember - add 1/2" seam allowances to the strips. Here, the strips need to be 3 1/2".
I cut a 3 1/2" blue strip, sewed a black strip to each side, added another blue/black unit, and then cut the whole thing to the right width for the space.
The unit is then stitched to the corresponding shirt. This one ended up a bit longer than the shirt, so the excess was just trimmed away. I'm not going to fret over an 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch size difference between the strips.
Now the little block on the right needs sashing to fit the space. This time, black was sewn to the top and bottom of the small shirt logo,
and two black/blue strips are made for the sides, without a great concern for length. To get the small shirt block centered, it was creased in the middle, as was the corresponding shirt with sashing, (see the circle below) and those folds matched up.
Sewn on, the excess at the top and bottom is trimmed off after lining up the ruler with the shirt to the left.
Now all of the pieces in that area can be sewn together. The upper corner of the top is now done.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea of how to do this. If the t-shirt block is too small, add blocks or sashing to make it fit the area, being creative in the design. Also, add sashing in between blocks for ease of sewing units together. The result is a fun t-shirt quilt that will make it's owner very happy!
Happy Quilting!
