Printing on Pretreated Cotton, Side by Side comparison

I had purchased some Tailor Computer Printer Fabric at a craft store in Keene last year and that is what I printed my "Moonlit Yurt" painting on since the other inkjet cotton sheets I had ordered had not arrived yet. The print on the Tailor cotton came out really faint and a lot of the color was missing so I further embellished it with fabric pastels, paints and stitch. The paper was really flimsy and didn't want to feed through my EPSON R2400 (which prints with archival pigmented inks not regular inks). When the print came out of the printer is was smeared and it had hit the print head on the edges so there was black ink all over the edges.

Yesterday my EQ Printables Ink Jet Fabric (Cotton) Sheets arrived so I tested them and there was a huge difference in quality and color. Here are some photos showing the differance.

The Tailor sheets on the left were really flimsy and curled up. The ink smeared on the painting and the edges hit the printer heads leaving smeared black ink all over the edges. Both sheets were printed using my EPSON R2400 with archival pigmented inks. There color was very faded on the Tailor sheet.
The EQ Printables sheet was a totally different story. The color was rich, fully saturated and true to the original art. There were no smears at all and the sheet feed through the printer perfectly. The print remained flat and the edges did not curl all up.

 The Tailor sheet, on the left,  had to be taped down to get it uncurled enough to even photograph. The image smudged across the whole painting shown at the top of this photo.Also the edges were smeared with black ink, which made a total mess of everything it touched.

 No comparing the color the EQ Printables, pictured on the bottom, won hands down!

Another shot showing the smearing of the painting on the bottom and the black ink on the edges.

So for ease of printing, color saturation and color matching, high quality thick sheets that feed easily through the printer EQ Printables won. However after soaking and rinsing as directed ,when I went to quilt it it was still quite stiff and did not show the stitches as well as the softer Tailor cotton did. I am further experimenting with washing with Ivory liquid dish detergent (can be used as a substitute for Synthrapol). I scrubbed the fabric back sides together to soften it up and I now have it soaking in fabric softener. I will let you know if this helps soften it up to allow the quilting stitches to show up more. Also if it retains its rich color after all this abuse.