Printing on muslin-

I posted this on the blog at Fairy Davis but thought I would share it too. I have been toying with the idea of printing vintage images on fabric for a while.  I spotted some packages of pre-cut printable fabric at my local fabric store and really wanted to try it, but the price was very steep.  I was hesitant to pick it up to expiriment with.  I knew from a friend's attempts at printing images on shrink film that there are can be a lot of test runs to get the colors adjusted just right.  At something like $12 for a package of 4 sheets of fabric, I wasn't too gung ho to drop a chunk of change for what could be a bunch of trial and error. I knew for what I wanted to use the printed items on, non-washable craft items, that I didn't need fabric sheets that were pretreated to withstand washing.  What I really needed was a way to make a piece of fabric stiff enough to go through the printer.  The answer was actually sitting in my ebroidery supplies, Sulky Sticky Tear-Away Stabilizer. I cut a piece of white muslin and a piece of Sulky to 8.5x11 and adhered them together.  In my photo editing program (Photo Shop Elements 6) I created a collage of images (all from Fairy Davis) and simply printed it on the stiffened fabric.  So easy!  I didn't even tinker with color or contrast, I simply printed.  You can see the results above, which I think is pretty darn cool!  There are so many possibilities of what you could use these for.  Keep in mind, I didn't wash these so I can't attest to the ink permancey for wearables. I used a couple of the images on the needlecase tags on a couple of pincusions I created for friends. For Amy: And for Holly: