Personalize a Quilt or Fabric Greeting
Using Photos Transferred onto Fabric

 

 

Q: Hello, I am a casual quilter or have been and plan to do more now that my grandkids have moved away and my husband has Alzheimers....in other words staying close to home.... I want to make my grandkids a quilt using pictures from their life as they were growing up....where can I find the info to do this?

A: Thank you for contacting me. I'm sorry to hear about your husband. Making quilts definitely will help keep you relaxed as you help him.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to transfer the photos onto fabric. If you have a scanner, that would be best. Or you can take your pictures to a CVS / Savon / Walgreens drug store or place like that where they can transfer the photos onto a CD. The idea is to get your photos in a digital format so you can use your printer to print on fabric.

You can purchase sheets of treated fabric with paper backing, such as "Printed Treasures," that will run through your printer. You can also use Bubble Jet Set, which is a bath that will treat your fabric so the ink will stay in it.

You just need to edit the pictures to make them the right size. You should be able to do that in Word (surprisingly). Just insert the picture into your document. Click on the picture so it makes little squares in the corners. Then put your cursor on one of the squares; when it changes into a double arrow, you can hold down your mouse and slide it to make the picture smaller. When it's the right size, just click to print. Put the Printed Treasures in your printer face down, and let it roll.

Inserting pictures into Word also allows you to see how the pictures will print on the Printed Treasures. This special photo transfer fabric is 8-1/2" by 11" (the same size as a piece of paper). If your pictures are smaller than that, you can place several pictures on the page and print them all at once. I would not run the Printed Treasures through the printer more than one time.

If you place several pictures on one sheet, be sure to place them far enough apart for seam allowances (at least 1/2", although you might want to go a little more).

Set the blocks however you like - with just simple borders, or something a little more complex. Here are just a few ideas:

This was the first time I transferred a photo onto a quilt. The photo was backwards because it used some kind of "goo" that it soaked in.	These were hot pads I made for my fellow Rotarians. I printed a Club greeting on denim. Funny, I got them back at the end of the year! Just a joke.	This t-shirt quilt for my dad has flannel Eccentric Star blocks. Each of the blocks has a picture transferred onto flannel using a photo transfer method.

 

Watch the video for a look at how to run the fabric through your ink jet printer:

 

 

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