Back to Part One
There is a lot more on the Web about transfer printing. Some of it is directed at commercial textile printers since the use of transfer printing is growing to be very important in the textile producing world.
For those who like to delve a little deeper into the subject, or who are thinking about moving from a hand iron to a heat press, I've collected more Web links for you to explore.
About Sublimation Transfer Printing
One type of transfer printing you'll see mentioned is a completely different process than the one most quilters are using. You are not likely to use it, but may find it interesting to know about. It does not depend on the transfer of ink jet ink or copier toner to the fabrics, where they are essentially "glued down" with a plastic or wax type coating on the papers, which we have covered in the first part of this article. Sublimation is a process whereby a solid turns directly into a gas without passing through a liquid state. The most common example of this that we all know is that of dry ice "melting" and going directly into a gas from a solid. There are dyes or inks which "sublime" as well. They are solid and when subjected to heat and pressure they go to a gas state and can be transferred to a fabric (which must be polyester). They then go into the polyester fibers and re-solidify as a solid color again. These inks can be printed onto paper from either a silkscreen process or from large, wide-body printers with ribbons which are impregnated with the sublimation inks. These papers then can transfer images onto polyester fabrics.
If you do want to experiment with using these dyes (called "Disperse Dyes" as a group) you can get them from ProChem: Prosperse Dispersed Dyes.
Various Suppliers and Transfer Equipment
AwardCrafters offers more details on the sublimation process.
ImprintsUSA is another supplier - click on How to and Troubleshooting
Hergan Corporation lists papers (including cold peel), but no further details on their site (Florida location)
George Knight & Co. specializes in a wide range of heat presses (in Mass.)
JG Electronics in So. Africa has supplies and transfer papers (although their inner web pages don't open well)
Want to see links to an Gallery of quilts printed with Transfer Printing and two of my transfer printed quilts? See this Gallery page.
Go BACK to the Part 1 of Transfer Printing on Fabric with Computers Article
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