Printing on fabric with metallic foil
Printing on fabric with gold foil, silver foil, or other great metallic colors has been on my to-do list for a long time. But I was a bit intimidated by it, because it just wasn't clear to me how it worked. So, what did I do? I locked myself in my little SewSimple laboratory (with three pots of tea and two dozen protein bars) and started testing. I'll reveal the test reports, findings, and resulting tutorials in this blog post.Where can you buy metallic foil?
I got my metallic foil from Amazon. Under the name Thermoweb Deco Foil* you can find it in many very beautiful colors. I tried out gold and silver.
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Let's get started with
Printing on fabric with silver foil and fabric glue
My very first attempt. I started with Deco Foil and Tesa all-purpose glue.* I chose this fabric glue because the glue stick that comes with Deco Foil had such poor reviews on Amazon. Many customers reported that the stick arrived already dried out and with lumpy contents. I didn't want to risk that, so I went straight for the Tesa all-purpose glue. No risk, no fun. So: I cut the fabric and wrote a phrase on it with the glue.
It felt a bit too wet to me right away - so:
I gave it a quick blow-dry. Then I applied the foil. Unfortunately, inside out. The thing is: the foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The matte side must come into contact with the glue. So, one more time.
Shiny side up!
Better. Since I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next, I placed a piece of parchment paper on top and ironed it.
Let it cool down briefly. The foil had shriveled a little bit from the heat of the iron. Note: Next time, iron on setting 2.
But I wasn't really satisfied with the result. I experimented with different thicknesses of glue application. It was clear: Gütermann textile glue didn't work at all. The best results were clearly achieved with the Tesa glue. A few attempts later...
Quite nice. By the way, the pattern is our Alsterprinzessin cosmetic bag. This time in the heavy metal version. ;)
The experiments with the glue led me to the question of whether it might be simpler and cleaner to use a different adhesive medium. Since I have been a big fan of Heat'n'Bond* since the pizza technique, I tried that out right away. :)
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Printing on fabric with Heat'n'Bond and metallic foil
I have to say in advance: that worked great. That's why here is just one single failed example. I cut out an anchor from Heat'n'Bond and ironed it onto a piece of cotton fabric.
Because I wanted to do an especially good job, I ironed for a very long time. So long that the adhesive on the Heat'n'Bond completely sank into the fabric.
With the result that absolutely no foil stayed stuck.
It must be possible to do better than that. So, I reduced the ironing time to a minimum and ironed on setting 2. First with a very simple design...
I found that very encouraging and was immediately ready to venture more. I wanted something that looked mysteriously like Aztec gold and sunken treasures. So:
Tutorial: Printing on fabric with metallic foil
First, I cut out a design from Heat'n'Bond... To make the design look nice, I trimmed the spiral again. This creates a narrow gap between the curves, making the snail shape clearly visible.
Place the motif on the fabric.
And iron briefly on setting 2 - really just long enough so that the transfer paper can be easily removed after it cools down.
Peel off the transfer paper.
This is how it should look now: The adhesive film from the Heat'n'Bond is sticking and shiny, but it hasn't soaked into the fabric like in the example of the anchor.
Place the gold foil onto the motif with the matte side facing down.
Place baking paper on top - the foil will burn if it gets direct ironing heat.
Iron for approx. 5 - 10 seconds at a low heat. Afterwards, while the fabric is still not completely cooled down, I rub over the edges of the motif with a dish towel using light pressure. You can already tell from the photo: This is going to work!
The big moment... Drumroll! ;)
Yay!
Unfortunately, I cannot show the result of this attempt - I had forgotten that you shouldn't iron the foil. *Cough*... In any case, I liked the result so much that I immediately printed another little bag with gold foil. And it is already very Aztec-gold, I think.
By the way, you can also work with the adhesive film without transfer paper. I will show you this with this example:
Gold printing with a punched-out motif
A byproduct of my experiments: I punched out small anchors from Heat'n'Bond using my motif punch*.
The transfer paper came off during this. So I just used the adhesive film. ;) Placed on the fabric, gold foil on top, ironed briefly...
Peeled off after cooling - and:
Here you can see very nicely that really only the paper-thin metallic layer comes off and bonds with the adhesive.
My last experiment was
Printing on faux leather with metallic foil
This naturally only works with faux leather that can withstand some ironing heat. This time, silver foil was used. Handling it worked just the same as on fabric. However, I was even more careful with the ironing heat and set the iron between settings 1 and 2. And really only ironed just long enough for the Heat'n'Bond to stick. The result is impressive, I think!
Ah, I really like that. So mysterious... The pattern is our Nanami cosmetic bag by the way.
Well, I guess that finally worked! :) Soon I will also try the rose gold, I like that very much as well. There is another glue from Deco Foil, I ordered it and will test it. And of course, I will present the results to you here on the blog, I promise! :)
By the way: The bags can be washed by hand inside out - but unfortunately, ironing is out of the question. :)
Happy simple sewing, your Sabine
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