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DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester

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DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester
DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester

“Every so often change your palette. Introduce new colours and discard others. You will gain knowledge of colour mixing and your work will have added variety.”
 ~ Kenneth Denton, English Painter, b. 1932

I'm getting very fascinated with changing the colours of textiles at the moment - it gives them a new look, added value and we can reconnect with the garment.  Recolouring is like painting, we can dictate what colour to add and as the piece of clothing grows with you and your personality changes, we can change the palette. My experiments so far have been batik and dying with drop techniques (akin to shibori but no vat involved).

Most, if not all methods, involve the use of natural fibers as the base. Unfortunately, the demand for man-made fibers (MAF) is growing, and the demand for MAF such as polyester surpassed that of cotton in 2002, and is still increasing at a significantly faster rate than other fibers.  It doesn't help that the slump in the oil market has affected polyester prices.

So what do you do with all this polyester? 
It doesn't biodegrade. Recycling is difficult considering that the majority of the clothing is from blended fibers and frankly, it's difficult to remove the stains from polyester garments.

One of my good friends. Leon, is a t-shirt printer and I was very interested with the huge heat press he has at his warehouse.  He's been using it to transfer designs to both cotton and polyester t-shirts. What got me interested was whether we could do it at home. I don't have a heat press, or plan on investing in one, but what about using an iron?

DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester

Sublimation?
That's the process that transforms solid into gaseous matter, skipping the liquid phase. In sublimation printing, heat is used to transfer the dye onto the fabric. In fact, you can buy sublimation transfer paper - it's basically like your iron-on transfers.  But if you have a friend who is in the t-shirt printing business then it's nice to go to them instead - just get one sheet printed!

I cut out my design and laid it out on a polyester camisole I got at a swap. [I eventually cut the camisole to make it into a small scarf]
A piece of paper was carefully positioned over the top and then a hot iron was applied over it.
I shifted the cutouts to different locations and applied the iron over the paper for a shorter period of time to create what is known as ghost images.

DIY Sublimation Printing

And this is how it looks like.

DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester


I was thinking of adding stitching to it to create more depth to the fabric but I think it looks better as it is.

DIY Sublimation Printing on Polyester

This project took me about 4 hours and I think it was because I used a domestic iron. Do you think this is a technique you would use?

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Abdelghafour

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7 comments

  1. This is too cool! Does your friend offer printing service on the transfer sheet? Love!

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  2. Thanks for the post Agatha. Love the layered effect and depth that was created :)

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  3. Nice job Agy. Polyester and other man-made fibers can be immersion dyed with disperse dyes by boiling them in a pot with a Tbsp of powder disperse dye and 1 tbsp of vinegar in about 2 gal of water for about 40 minutes. You can use shibori techniques to create interesting shapes. Let the fabric cool off while still tied then wash in cold water and your pleats etc are permanent.

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  4. Love this, Agy! It really is such a beautiful scarf - I'm really excited to give this a try! I've played around with dying polyester a few times and have been moderately successful!

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  5. That is so cool, well done!
    Maybe you guys are interested to have your own unique t-shirt design or create your own design, please visit https://www.gearbubble.com/

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