Coloring Printable Fabric?
 

Howdy y'all :c)

Last year my 2nd cousin's wife did a great job putting together a family reunion for my father's side of the family. She is planning on doing another one next year, and I want to make a quilt for her in appreciation for all the work she puts into it. I have yet to make an art quilt, but have an idea for making a "Family Tree" quilt for her.

I have an old black and white photo of my paternal grandfather with his 10 sons and his first grandson. I would like to print the photo onto fabric, stencil a tree onto the background fabric with the word "Family" stamped on the trunk, then cut around the photo to make it shaped like the tree leaves and appliqué it onto the stenciled tree. In order for it to look right, I would have to somehow make it green, yet make it light enough for the photo to still show through.

I've asked friends who quilt and also shops that sell the printable fabric how to go about doing this, but so far no one even knows if you can color printable fabric at all.

Does anyone have any ideas how u can do this, or even if it can be done? I saw an episode of "Quilting Arts" recently where her guest star used acrylic ink to color fabric (she said she uses cotton sheeting to color?), and she showed how to give it a pale, water-color look. Would that work? I'd sure appreciate some comments and ideas on this! Thanks y'all! :c)

Donna

I don't know about colouring printable fabric. My 2 older grandchildren coloured with fabric crayons on regular white quilting cotton for a quilt when their brother was born.
He's 8 now and the quilt, much used and washed, is still coloured.
It would seem to me you could stencil your tree onto cotton fabric and applique onto that.

Donna,
You can use unbleached muslin, and there are paints that are for fabric. You can mix them with water to make lighter, I used a spray bottle with water to give my quilt a watercolor effect. There is also a solution to put on the fabric that stops the color from bleeding into areas you don't want the color. All I got at Joann's
Joy

Better yet, use either bleached muslin or white PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric. You'll want a white fabric to start with so your colors come out true. Any fabric can be turned into PFD by prewashing (with Synthrapol is good, but not necessary), and using no fabric softeners, dryer sheets, etc that add chemicals back onto the surface.

You can use fabric paints, acrylic paints, acrylic inks, colored pencils, crayons, fabric markers, dyes, or any number of things to add color to fabric. With watered down acrylic inks, you could put a wash over the printed photo instead of under it. You could also use photo editing software to just print your photo in green ink. Washability is a factor in whichever method you choose, so consider that aspect before you decide. Sounds like a great project...wishing you much success.

You could also use thread to stitch some leaves, branches etc on parts of the photo that will not harm the pictures.
I just saw on a website a panel of a family tree so I know you could also go that way and applique the photo and
any other words...sounds like a fun project! Please let us see the end result!

You could use bubble Jet set sew to treat some pale green fabric and print on that.

Thanks for all the replies y'all! :c) So if I used muslim or some other fabric, how do I get that to go through a printer? Thanks! :c)

Donna

I iron freezer paper to the fabric...cut it 8 1/2 "x11" to fit the printer and proceed ! Works great!