Printing on fabric with ink jet printer

[Mary K.]

I could sure use your advice and ideas.... :idea:

I am trying to print on Color Plus Fabrics by Color Textiles. The sheets are 100% Washable Poplin Fabric and have the sheet of paper on the back for feeding into the printer. My printer is an HP PSC 2355 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier. What is happening is that the sheets sound like they are not getting properly fed into the printer and either cause a jam, or are missing the first part of the photo that I am printing (i.e. the first ~25% of the photo gets cut off and the edge of the photo paper captures the last 75% of the photo). Any advice? The picture prints correctly on regular paper, but has this problem with the fabric/paper. Thanks for any advice you can share! :!: Mary Kay[/i]

[Mary K.]

In your printer settings you might see if you can change the weight of the paper from normal paper to a heavy weight or card stock setting. I am not sure if that is the problem... but it might help.

[Mary K.]

Thanks, Karen! I will try that tonight and see if that helps. I am so excited about the quilt I am making - it's my memorial to Gunther (my German shepard who passed away at the beginning of April). I am just finding that I have hit this technical skill that I am going to have to learn my way through to make the quilt. Thanks again for your suggestion. :idea:

[Mary K.]

No luck. My printer still will not properly feed the fabric sheets. :? We have another printer, so I may try the newer one to see if that works.

[Mary K.]

You may want to look inside of your printer to make certain that there are no dust bunnies or paper snippets to block the sheet going through. However, the problem may not be with paper jams. I also suspect that it is with your settings. Be sure to check "Print Preview" to ensure that the entire image is on the page prior to your wasting your expensive printable fabric sheets. Once your preview image looks correct, you may try first printing a "draft" copy of that mage onto a sheet of inexpensive muslin ironed onto freezer paper cut to the 8.5" x 11" size. Make certain that the front edge of the fabric entering the printer is well attached to the paper and that there are no loose fabric threads to clog up your printer. I have two HP Printers, one Deskjet 820CSe and the other is a Photosmart 8250. I've had much better luck with fabric sheets using my Deskjet, but would prefer the image quality of the Photosmart.

Good Luck!
Nancy

[Mary K.]

Mary Kay, are you feeding each sheet individually? With the June Tailor sheets that I used, I was able to print a 2x2 with no errors when I fed the sheets individually. But when I tried to stack the sheets I ended up with photos printing half way down on a sheet. I used 4 sheets when the photo should've only used 2.

Hope this helps. Lissette

[Mary K.]

Thanks, Nancy and Lissette, for your advice! I will give it a try again tonight. I am feeding the sheets individually... and that's not working. So I am going to try another printer and see if that works. Thanks, too, for the suggestion :idea: :!: on the fabric and wax paper - what a GREAT option to the expensive fabric sheets while I am doing all this trial and error. I will let you know how it goes. Mary Kay

[Mary K.]

Well, using a different printer worked (it is one or two years younger) and it fed the fabric sheets ok. But the quality of the printing is not as good as the photo printer that I have been trying to make work for a couple days. So......... I am going to finish my current quilt project, and I may have to consider upgrading printers to be able to use for my quilting projects. Any recommendations on a printer that feeds fabric on paper AND has high quality sharpness in the printing? Thanks again for your advice! Mary Kay

[Mary K.]

Mary Kay, I was checking out the HP website, they have a craft
e-newsletter that I get, they often have printed fabric projects. I've been looking into them also. My only req. is that the replacement printer be a flat bed for homework assignments and copying templates from my quilting books.

Lissette

[Julia L.]

Hi, I have the exact same HP printer as you and I used june tailer colorfast ink jet fabric sheets and the only problem I had was that I forgot to check the ink supply and discovered there was barely enough ink left.! But I didn't have any problem with the machine taking the paper.Before you but another printer you might try another kind of fabric sheet?Good luck. Julie

[Julia L.]

I have a HP Deskjet 810c - not a high end machine but not a bad one either, and i have had wonderful results printing on fabric using the June Taylor printable fabric sheets. Check out the wedding ring quilt in my personal photos in profile. All the wedding pictures were printed on this machine.

[Sandy F.]

I just got a HP Business Inkjet 2800 at work that will print up to 20" wide. If you treat the fabric in the Bubblejet is there a time limit on how long you have to print on the fabric. With freezer paper I could eliminate seams and have a good size project.

[Patti P.]

I have the Epson Photostylus RX600 which was kind of pricey at the time but has been worth its weight in gold for years. I never have problems jamming and it takes my home made freezer paper backed pages all the time.

[Patti P.]

Mandy, that's the same HP that I have, I also print on my Lexmark x125 and the quality is great also. I just have remind myself to check the ink levels.

BTW, the other day my DH suggested I buy the generic ink refill kits for my printing needs, I was in shock! :shock: I had to explain to him that it wasn't possible -- the quality of my fabric prints would suffer and my projects would fade befor they were even quilted. ops:

Sandy, I'm not sure about the bubblejet, did you check with your lqs? They might know how to help you.

Lissette

[Mary K.]

Hi, I have the exact same HP printer as you and I used june tailer colorfast ink jet fabric sheets and the only problem I had was that I forgot to check the ink supply and discovered there was barely enough ink left.! But I didn't have any problem with the machine taking the paper.Before you but another printer you might try another kind of fabric sheet?Good luck. Julie

Thanks, Julie! I will see if mine needs a good cleaning, or something to fix the feed mechanism. Plus I will look for the sheets that are working for you. :idea: I really appreciate the advice!!! :!: :!: Mary Kay