QuiltingByCourtney

I have this neat idea for a label for a quilt I made for my husband. Its very special and its for him when he has to go away on trainings as he is in the military. It will be a picture of us as we were holding hands walking down a park path and on the center of the photo is the words of our wedding vows...the picture is in black and white... I have seen on youtube how you can print on fabric...does anyone know how well the ink stays on after washes or will this all fade after a year and look like trash? They say once the ink sets it is permanent, but I assume it will fade after time, I wonder how fast it will fade, like a year or two?
I want to have the picture & writing be the center part of the block....this label/finished block will go onto the backing of the quilt on the top and center, so every time he covers up he can read our wedding vow & a little love note from me...Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks much! I have never done this before so it will be a new thing for me to try it.

spokanequilter

I made a quilt using photos from our son's wedding. They were printed on an ink jet printer. The kids have had the quilt for 4 years and it has had a lot of use. It lays over the back of their sofa and gets pulled down to cover sleeping children (or Mom or Dad) and has even been used for "tent building" by our grandsons. The quilt has been washed numerous times and the photos, although faded, are still very much visible. Our daughter in law says it's starting to look like the photos are sepia-toned and she loves it! I think our idea is great!

GemState

What I have found is to heat set what you have printed by ironing it several times, let it sit for a day or two, iron it some more. After a day or two you can spritz it with water and iron it again. It you put water on it right away after printing it will run and smear. I have labels I have washed several times. They do fade a little but stay pretty OK.

Jan in VA

Your question made me get up and look at the label on a quilt that I have hanging on my studio wall. It was made in 1993 and labeled with an HP injet printer, has been washed several times over the years, and is still going strong, clear, easily readable. That's 20 years of "last-ability"!

Jan in VA

Nammie to 7

That is nice to know - I just bought myself a printer so hope to do this process one of these days.

QuiltingByCourtney

I just printed a label. It was a black and white picture with wording on it, it turned out great. I saw this tutorial on youtube and it was super easy.

Steps: take an 8x10 plain sheet of printer paper, then I taped (I didn't have a glue stick) freezer paper which was a slight bit smaller then my 8x10 piece of paper to it with the shiny side facing me...then I took my fabric and placed it on the freezer paper where I wanted my picture to print, turned it all upside down then ironed it because you don't want that shiny wax to get on your iron...then I flipped it over made sure my fabric was nice and tacked down temporarily, put it in my printer and hit print! It came out nice! then I pealed my fabric off the freezer paper, and put it on my ironing board and ironed it to set the ink...I am going to iron it again tomorrow before I put the piece of fabric in the washing machine because I want to make sure the ink stays before I put it on into my quilt pieced backing.

SandiGrove

This is the way to go! Don't iron backwards & forwards just press with a hot iron to set the ink bubbles into the fabric - I do all the above then wash it before I sew it on - just in case lol