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Ink Jet fabric printing is in its early stages of development. It is important to note that many printer manufactures have not taken a great interest in the possibilities of using their printers to print on fabric. As a result, the crafters and quilters across the world has taken it upon themselves to improve and educate many us in the world of digital fabric printing.
In the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth and textile screen printing. I am still not sure which one came first. What I am sure about is that screen printing has been around since time began. This process creates bright colors but labor intense and very slow at times. A few million years later, ink jet printing was invented and fabric printing would never be the same.
In the early 1990's someone got the bright idea to run fabric through a basic ink jet printer. To their surprise, it printed on fabric as easy as paper. The only draw back is the ink is water based and does not create permanent images. The solution sounds simple enough to create permanent ink. However, the problem lies in your print heads. Permanent ink is created from nature pigments which permanently adhere to nature fabrics. However, the pigments are too large and simply would clog your print heads. Engineers have designed previous printers with the capabilities of printing pigment inks.To achieve better print quality at the higher DPI you must create smaller print nozzles. As a result, engineers are forced to use water based inks because they will not clog the smaller print nozzles.
In 1994 C. Jenkins Necktie & Chemical Co. invented a chemical that would pregnant the fabric with pigment like agents allowing the water based ink to become permanent upon contact. This simple solution known as Bubble Jet Set 2000 opened the door for many crafters and companies trying to create wearable items with ink jet technology.
Currently, there are dozens of companies creating similar fabrics with similar capabilities. With all these choices it has become difficult to gauge which fabric gives the best performance.
The Future
This thought brings me to the future and the next step for improving printing on fabric. The concerns that exist around digital fabric printing are simple but very difficult to solve. Archival is a term that every quilter has become familiar with. Simply put, how long will it last?. Most of us have no ideal how many years these wonderful items will last once created. We are certain that the inks offer no UV protection and everyday it is exposed to light it will get lighter and lighter. However, all ink is not created equal and some will fade within a year and some will last for years. But at this point we are all guessing because there is too many inks and not enough data. So you are taking a risk if you are making a quilt you are trying to past down from generation to generation. Some Archival inks are available but are terrible with abrasion when washing.
Acid Free is another term becoming popular with ink jet printing. We realized that some inks did not fade right away but they began to turn yellow like those pictures of grandma. Scapbooking has made a big impact on acid free products but nothing exciting enough to help us in fabric printing.
Crocking is a term that most textile companies are familiar with and quickly gave digital printing a thumbs down because of the crocking problem. Basically, you take a clean white piece of fabric and rub it up against the fabric you have digitally printed. If color transfers from the printed fabric to the white piece of fabric you have a crocking problem. All water based ink jet inks have an extreme crocking problem. As a result, textile printers are not giving up the old process just yet.
Finally, we will explore fading and bleeding fabrics. Most fabrics bleed and fade because of the over saturation of inks when printing. For example, take a piece of basic muslim and print on it with a high end ink jet printer. These printers put down large quantities of ink and produces a wonderful picture on the fabric. This is true until you wash it or get it wet! The chemical formula bonds to all the ink that the fabric will hold or absorb. The excess ink will wash away. Therefore, you will have what appears to be a faded image. Also, if you fail to rinse the loose ink out of the fabric, the ink will spread into the white parts of the fabric causing your image to blur or bleed.
We have yet to learn all the possibilities and capabilities of the new system. Many of us has tried to answer this questions with one possible solution and quickly found that one fabric, one chemical or one company is not capable of solving this task alone.
The future is simple. Soon you will be able to choose from different printers, different fabrics and different inks to help solve one of the problems above and C. Jenkins Necktie & Chemical CO. promises to be one of the leaders you can depend on.
Written for Jerome's Column
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