fun with ink jet printable cotton

It's a gorgeous time of year here in northern Delaware!

With all the leaves falling, my daughter was inspired to do a craft with her friends involving leaves.

I recently discovered these nifty ink jet printable fabric sheets by Jaquard at my local sewing store, Hayes Sewing Machine Co.

I used them to make the face on my new matryoshka doll onesie & tee. When my daughter saw me using it, she started thinking of things to scan and print out on the stuff.

Leaves work great. Once you've scanned them and printed them onto the sheets, which print just like paper, you peel off the backing and have a nice piece of fabric with your imagery on it.

We decided to make the leaves into iron-ons by applying another favorite product of mine, fusible web, to the back side. I really like Warm Company's Steam-a-Seam Lite 2. It has a waxy paper backing on both sides. Cut the web to the size of the fabric sheet, then peel off one side of the backing. Place tacky side down onto the back side of the printed sheet and iron until adhered. Now the leaves can be cut out. We left white around the edges, but you could trim right up to the edges of the leaf if you wanted to.

You could do just about anything with the iron-ons- decorate your jeans, apply to a tote bag, but we decided to make 12" x 12" pillows out of some corduroy from my stash. To make a 12" x 12" pillow we figured out we needed to cut a 25" x 13" rectangle to allow for the seam allowances and folding in half to make the front/back. To apply the iron-ons, peel off the 2nd layer of paper from the back and place on the background fabric. When arranged pleasingly, just iron.

Appliqué-aholic that I am, I had the girls stitch around the leaves as well which was good practice for pivoting and controlling the stitching. The web is great, but doesn't necessarily last forever, especially if you wash your item, so it's nice to sew them down. Speaking of washing, if you plan to wash your printed fabric, wait 24 hours, then soak it in some salt water, rinse, and allow to dry. It'll fade a little, but still be pretty and unlikely to run and fade dramatically with future washes.

After the appliquéing, sewing up the sides with 1/2" seam allowances, stuffing, and closing the last bit was a piece of cake. It was a totally doable project for 10 year-olds. I think they did a lovely job!