HP Vivera Inks on Fabric

There have been some questions (and confusion) on a group list that I'm on about printer inks, and which ones can be used on fabric. Of course, everyone recommends the Epson pigment inks for both water resistance and light-fastness.

Since I love to print on fabric, I wanted an Epson printer that uses pigment inks for Christmas. My lovely partner wasn't quite sure what she was looking for while shopping. The salesperson apparently assured her that the new HP Vivera inks were pigment and not dye inks, and that these were comparable to the Epsons. So, I got an HP Photosmart C8180 All-in-one printer for Christmas.

I love this printer for all its features and for the quality of the prints. I've been happily printing away on fabric until someone suggested on the Yahoo list that HP inks—even the Viveras, whether dye or pigment-based--would run as soon as water touched them. I immediately had visions of all the color in my printed-fabric journal and art quilts melting away if they ever accidently got wet.

I started doing some research, and it turns out that HP calls both its pigment inks and its dye inks "Vivera." My printer uses the # 02 cartridges and a 6-cartridge color system. I assume that the inks are dye-based, since I found this information in a review of the C8180 at Imaging-Resource.com:

There's been a lot of discussion over the relative merits of pigments vs. dye-based inks. The longevity of HP's Vivera dye-based inks when used on HP's Premium Plus photo paper exceeds 100 years, according the tests by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc.

That mates the dye-based Vivera inks to a swellable sheet that should not be handled right away. We let them sit for 24 hours, actually, before framing or stacking them. That's quite a bit less convenient than Kodak's pigment-based system, which lets you handle the prints right away (and doesn't have tabs that have to torn off the 4x6 sheets).

Doesn’t sound good. Does this mean I can’t use my printer for printing on fabric? I decided to do my own tests for water-resistance (I'm not sure how to test for light-fastness without comparing an HP-printed image to an Epson-printed image over a period of time; since I don't have access to an Epson printer, I can't check for this).

I used Photoshop to create a double-image, then printed this out onto a Jacquard Inkjet Printing Cotton Sheet (I’m going to duplicate the test with my own Bubble Jet Set-treated fabric in the future).

I waited for about 18 hours, then heat set the entire image with an iron on the highest setting.

I cut the image on the right side into 4 pieces, and wrote notes on each piece. I rinsed the first piece of the image in warm water, then let it dry. The second piece will be rinsed in warm water after two days; the third, after one week; and the fourth, after one month. The idea is to test how much ink rinses out of the fabric, and whether curing time retains more ink.

The first results (image dried for 18 hours, then heat set) show very little color loss between the original and the rinsed piece. There is a slight color loss, but not as much as I expected, give the rumors. I’ll post additional results over the next month showing the other three tests.

Given the results of the first test, I would recommend that fabric printed with HP Vivera inks be heat set, and that it be rinsed thoroughly so that any “loose” ink will be washed out before using the fabric in a quilt (otherwise, if the quilt gets wet, the inks may bleed or run into each other).

I can't tell you, though, how happy I am to know that the color in my printed-fabric quilts won't melt away with water, and that I can continue to use my wonderful printer!

Catfight!

Ok, just kidding, but it IS nice to hear family members squabbling (playfully, of course) over who gets this wall hanging:

This was the class project from Susan Brittingham’s Viewpoints class at Quilt U. She provided the project instructions for this one, and now I’m anxious to experiment with what I’ve learned and create more perspective quilts.

My family has made it clear that I won’t have any trouble getting rid of them once they are complete!

How Much Can I Fit Into 36 Sq. Inches?

This week’s 6x6” square was influenced by some of the materials I’ve been using, the weather, my health, and my strange mood.

I was bitten by the dye bug earlier in the week. Other than dyeing a piece of round robin fabric a few weeks ago, I haven’t done any fabric dyeing since before I got sick. The weather was beautiful this week though, and I kept eyeing the picnic table on the back patio (which my lovely partner has given me permission to liven up with spilled paints and dyes) and thinking how nice it would be to spread some fabric out and paint some thickened dyes onto it.

I never made it quite that far, but I did mix up some dye concentrates and paint various combinations of color onto watercolor paper. Most of these are nice, neat tables of overlapping colors and neat notations.

Then I went a little wild and just slapped color onto the wc paper. I scanned these into the computer, and used part of one (above) for the background on the weekly square.

I’m feeling over-stimulated and anxious this week. It started as a sort of manic exhilaration, a feeling that I could accomplish anything. There are a lot of things I want to do—more than I’m capable of actually doing. So then, of course, I feel depression creeping in, because I start to think that I’ll never be able to accomplish everything I want to. That’s an unhealthy pattern for me, because I tend to push myself too hard and neglect myself in the process.

Maybe I’ve been exposed to too much sunlight this week; I have thoughts jumping around in my head like crazy, songs running through my mind night and day, and general disorder and chaos happening up there.

On top of that (or in relation to that? because of that?) I’ve felt some of the scary symptoms of my pancreatitis more strongly this week (pain and nausea, among others).

“Cacophony” kept coming to mind when thinking about the square, so I used Photoshop to layer the word and its dictionary definition over the dye-painted background. I upped the color saturation a little, then printed it out onto fabric, which is sort of ironic if you think about it: fabric printed with inks of watercolor paper colored with fabric dyes (!). I did some free-motion stitching (just a little) with black thread, and used some hand-dyed black/gray fabric for the backing and the fused borders.

I think of this week’s square as both a reflection of the manic anxiety I’m experiencing and a reminder to myself to slow down, take a few deep breaths, and take care of myself.

Some Days You Just Gotta Play

Everyone knows I don't like to iron. My family doesn't even bother to ask. When my son was little and had to wear the occasional button-down shirt, I would iron only the parts that showed when his shirt was tucked in.

So why am I suddenly ironing, of all things, paper towels?

When I started dyeing fabric, I realized how many paper towels I use in a day as I caught myself throwing one after another after another into the trash. Not only did I feel guilty about the waste, but I'm a hopeless clutter-but, since that crazy little artist voice in my head is constantly sayiing, "hey, what if you . . . " Consequently, I started throwing used paper towels into a bag in my studio. If there's no kitchen towel handy after I wash my hands and I use a paper towel, it goes into the bag; if I eat dinner and barely use my paper-towel napkin, it goes into the bag; if I wipe up paint or put paper towels under dripping fabric, they go into my bag. I don't really worry about mixing or matching colors, since the surprise combinations can be pretty cool.

Every once in a while I'll pull a few out of the bag and use them to mop up paint, or I'll pour the last few drops of ink or watered-down paint out of a spray bottle onto them, or I'll wipe my brushes on them. Then I throw them back into the bag.

Some days I'm just in a mood to do something different and I can't face any of my ongoing projects. Yesterday was like that, so I pulled out those paper towels. I separated them into 3 stacks: those that needed color, or more color went back into the bag; those that looked perfect just the way they were, with variegations of several colors were ironed to smooth them out, then went into the "finished" stack.

And those that had plenty of color, but needed some embellishment, went into my craft room, where I stamped on them, wrote and drew on them with gel pens, squirted them with water and added more transparent paint, and just in general played. I've added pics of the finished pieces.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with them! I'll probably make journal covers with them. If nothing else, they'll serve as wonderful inspiration for trying to recreate them on fabric!

What's On My Design Wall

Katy on the Quiltart list asked what was on our design walls. My first thought was, "which one?"

So far, people have shown clean and neat design boards with one lovely WIP hanging on them.

I, otoh, am embarrassed to admit that

1) I use my design walls (3 of them) as catch-alls for WIPs, small finished pieces that I don't know what to do with, pieces of fabric I want to do something with (someday), and assorted other bits and pieces. It makes it hard to actually design anything on them. And

2) I have a bajillion projects going on at any one time, because I never know what I might want to work on (and because, I'll admit it, I'm much better at starting projects than finishing them).


My primary design wall, in my sewing studio, has so much stuff on it that I've taken to pinning pieces on top of other pieces.

I guess it's time to finish some of these, put some pieces away (or hang them throughout the house, or give them away), and generally clean up.

An Amazing Tool for Us OCD-Types

Maybe it's the weather; for some reason, I feel like I haven't been very productive this week. That wouldn't be so strange, except that I've actually done a lot. How do I know this? Because a few weeks ago, I discovered a REALLY cool program on my laptop that is actually helping me get organized: Microsoft OneNote. Maybe I'm slow, because this program has apparently been around for a while, and it's standard as part of the MS Office package (home & student version).

Anyway, OneNote is set up like a binder, with section tabs across the top, and page tabs down the right side within each section. It's taken a while to get all my "stuff" organized, but it was well worth the time I spent doing it. I have individual pages for each of the projects I'm working on (or have completed), with instructions on how I did it and pics of the project. I have to-do lists every week so I can keep track of all those things I want to work on. I have calendar pages so I can remember what's happening this month. I have pages with links to cool sites, filed under craft type, along with snippets of notes, ideas, and pictures. I have links to resources, so I don't have to keep asking, "now where did I find the best deal on that particular item?" I have wishlists of books and supplies. I have snippets of emails where people have provided tips, techniques, or answered my questions.

Oh, and here's another really cool feature: if I run across an idea, a link, a blog, whatever, but I don't want to take the time to put it into OneNote, I click a little icon in the system tray that opens up a page; I then copy and paste the information into a "note." The program automatically marks the note with the website where the information was copied from. Later, I file these notes in the appropriate sections and pages of my notebooks.

All this organizing might seem a little compulsive to some people, and it probably is. But I get so tired of spending huge amounts of time LOOKING for everything from craft articles to online supplies to instructions for how I made those ATCs (IF I wrote them down!). Now that I have my OneNote notebooks set up, I spend a couple of hours a week making sure all my information is entered.

I've added a screenshot here so you can get a visual of what I'm talking about. On the far left is a list of my notebooks; I have 2 for arts & crafts (one more resource-oriented, one for my projects) and one for home stuff. The center section is a particular page; this one documents last week's "weekly square" project. You can see the tabs across the top for the sections in this notebook, and the individual page tabs along the right side.

Ok, and now I'll come clean on something that's REALLY compulsive: I've even started sections for listing the articles in my two favorite magazines, Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors. Now, when I want to find that article on stenciling with Shiva Painstiks, all I have to do is search my notebook for it. Or, I can add a "paintstiks" tag to the article, then look at everything tagged with "painstiks." Cool, huh?

Here's my disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Microsoft. Sometimes I don't even like MS when one of its program irritates me or asks me once again if it can send information to MS. I really, really love this program, though!