Hello, I’m new here so not entirely sure how this space works but I was wondering if anyone has or knows if a heat press, embroidery machine and/or digital printer for fabric I could rent
Look forward to hearing from someone
Eliza
For what it’s worth, I’d love for the space to have a heat press. I know that’s not what you asked, but just lodging that here under this thread title as you’re the first I’ve seen to mention it.
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Heat press + 1
embroidary machine +1
Digital fabric printer +1 (only guessing what that is sounds amazing)
Eliza, sorry for not getting back on email…
There’s a new textiles place over in Peckham not sure of the name, but it’s worth a look… I’ll check with someone and get back to you.
Design ME Textiles
180 Ilderton Road
Peckham
SE15 1NT
Tel: 02076350121
Web: www.designmetextiles.co
Thats brilliant thank you, ill check them out
Hi there! I realise this is an old thread but looks like a good place to start in asking if people would be interesting in having a large format digital fabric printer in the space? If so I hope we might be able to persuade someone to lend/donate one?
It’s so expensive to get things printed so makes it impossible to do experiments, which I think holds back their use by most makers who would prefer to hack something than pay so much for their experiments. Personally I think this kind of printing is key to the maker revolution! It’s colourfast and you can basically print on anything these days.
Is anyone else interested in persuading the membership that we need one in our lives?! If so are you able to tag some other makers who you think might also want to add their support?
Cheers!
Sarah
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I’m fairly confident our Canon LPF should be capable of doing this already 
Yes we could definitely use it with some backing paper but it ends up being quite pricey and fiddly to put backing large pieces of fabric and jams a lot. Then you have to treat the print to be colour fast (unless you can get special ink that works with these printers?).
A fabric one would be super liberating and present the potential for creative ideas to hack further into other materials too!
Having said that am definitely going to do some playing with the Canon in the mean time!
Interesting. If it’s not said above, we can cut for-material vinyl, and then (in theory) heat press on. Good, long-term results for solid colour. But that’s not photo printing! Do you have a link for a possible model? I’ve not seen these things before.
Epson and HP do them https://www.epson.co.uk/verticals/professional-graphics/textile?WT.mc_id=cpc--google--textiles-_-uk&WT.tsrc=cpc&gclid=Cj0KEQjw7pHLBRDqs-X8hZ3Mgp0BEiQAXIo9rufl5E_4anwSywaXxXD38EXyAE4aG_IG_9uDYpi39bAaAuXl8P8HAQ
I have a swatch pack with about 90 fabrics which you can print on from felt to even lace. I’d be happy to bring them in and leave them somewhere for people to see. Do we have a materials library of sorts? Looking through the swatches is so inspiring - everything from tent fabrics to organic cotton and silk. Loads of potential for experimenting!
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I haven’t used the vinyl cutter - will definitely try it now though!
The vinyl cutter is no longer fully serviceable since since someone has either thrown out, hidden or nicked the media support rollers.
Hi @textilestechs I am really keen to persuade our textile members (and others) that we need to convince someone to lend or donate a large format textile printer to the space. I really strongly believe its a huge gap in the maker revolution because it’s so expensive to get things printed at the moment that no one is really using the medium.
I have loads of ideas for how we could use it to push our projects into new spaces. Do you have any thoughts on the best way to kick this off? I’m happy to lead and do all the legwork but I understand that these decisions are made by the whole community so very keen to rally support. Are there any textile (or other) events coming up that you think I could use to rally support?
I have a pack of 90 different fabric swatches that I could donate to the space for anyone who wants to see what it’s possible to do with one? Do we have a materials library maybe?
Can you help at all? Would you support this idea? All suggestions for how to move it forward welcome!
merged with previous thread on this topic
sounds interesting. although at point of reading i have no idea what this is.
some pics of what it is, and what it does might start to shed some light…
generally we’ll need to know:
- what size is it?
- what can it do?
- what can it do that we cant do all ready?
- is there interest from other members?
- could this encourage people to join that aren’t currently catered for?
- where will it go? (is this something we want now or for future “space”?)
Good questions!
This is epson’s one: https://www.epson.co.uk/products/printers/large-format-printers/surecolor-sc-f6200-hdk
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what size is it? - they come in different sizes. I think the most useful size is 44in which is twice the width of our inkjet printer but the same depth. This size would enable you to print proper rolls of fabric.
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what can it do? - it’s an inkjet printer which prints in colourfast fabric dye meaning you can do anything with your fabric that you would do with an industrially produced fabric. It has special rollers which are able to pull through virtually any kind of textile (without ironing on backing materials) and print your digital design directly onto it. This means you can print on anything from fleece, to lace, to suede, to canvas and rip-stop nylon.
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what can it do that we cant do all ready? - it can print in full colour, in literally seconds on literally any kid of fabric and that fabric is then colourfast. This is totally different to screenprinting (which I also love) it’s not blocks of colour its a digital artists medium. In combination with screenprinting though you can do some truly amazing things (think digital image with foil printed highlights - phwoar!) You can do some printing using a normal inkjet printer but you have to iron on an expensive backing medium to the fabric and it jams almost every time without exception. Then after printing you have to treat the fabric with very expensive and toxic chemicals to make it colourfast. This fabric printer can print anything you can design or load on a computer. Clothes, Upholstery, Tents, giant advertisements, textile designs with integrated fabrication instructions. Or instructions for integrating wearables into garments. Unique Dresses printed with long forgotten icons like Shera, or your mum’s face, or your dogs face. Or an original graphic, or your logo, or our logo, or a beautiful underwater photograph you took. Or batman, or wonder woman, or christmas trees or a full history of Brixton. Or images of people and things that mainstream fashion culture subjugates. Or swear words, or lyrics… Or you could print a cardigan and then 3D print some buttons for it… fully downloadable cardigan! Anything basically…
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is there interest from other members? - I hope so - if they see my swatches I strongly suspect there would be…
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could this encourage people to join that currently catered for? - I don’t know enough about the gaps at the moment. It would encourage fashion and textile and graphic designers. I would say it would encourage women but I appreciate there are many men in textiles these days (unlike when I started out) and perhaps we don’t suffer as badly as most maker spaces from gender imbalance? I also think it would have uses for those less confident with textiles but who are handy with adobe. They can start to explore how textiles fits into (or could fit into) their area. For example this kind of printer as a 3D printer for downloadable products? Also it’s safe for kids to use. They could print their own designs and drawings directly onto their own fabrics.
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where will it go? (is this something we want now or for future “space”?) - good question. I guess it would be one for discussion.
Hope some people will be an excited by this as me??
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Sounds interesting – space for a new activity/equipment is extremely hard won at the Makerspace though, and this is quite a big footprint. It’s hard to imagine where it would fit. However that shouldn’t put us off exploring any idea…
@textilestechs what do you guys think.
Not sure if running costs have been covered yet?