sublimation organic cotton?

[mfacer]

Hi - we're looking to make some cushions. I have a mug press at the moment so am OK with the whole process... but moving in to material printing I have a few questions.

Do I need to source sublimation coated cotton or can I print to sublimation paper and print on to any fabric surface? I really want to use organic (non-bleached) cotton, but not sure where to start looking if it has to be a particular coating on it.

If this doesn't work then screen printing will have to do - but we have 10 plus designs and it'd cost a fortune to set up!!

Thanks for any info

Matt.

[pisquee]

You can only print to polyester

[mfacer]

ah boo.... ok thank you! Looks like screen printing it is!!

[socialgiraffe]

For sampling you could try a laser transfer.

I would not suggest that as the final product as it probably would not last, but it would be ideal for seeing how the thing will look.

[pisquee]

We have some high quality polyesters that we use to with large format sublimation printing to cut and sew into various products, including cushions. We could do some printing of your designs made up into cushions before you went down the organic cotton route.
Or ou could contact RA Smart, who have a range of printing techniques in house for printing all manner of fabrics - you don't have to go the screen print route, there's plenty of digital options out there.

[rossdv8]

You can only print to polyester

I wish people would stop saying that!
You can only print permanently ans successfully on 100% polyester. There are methods that work for printing on everything from brass through glass, rock and timber including cotton.

But for cotton it is barely worth the effort. Certainly not as a commercial operation and even as a hobby the process is messy and the results vary. Even when it does work the colour tends to detach from of the cotton after a few years of weekly washes, because the individual fibres come loose as lint over time.

It is definitely possible, you can find photographs of sublimated cotton tees on this forum that have been washed hundreds of times, but it is NOT practical.