Well I won’t be needing to repeat the washing of the trial prints. The results are quite clear cut. The laser printer lost in a big way.
Today I put both pieces of fabric into a washing net (for washing delicate things) and then put them into a 40 degree wash with washing powder for coloureds – so no bleach and no fabric brighteners. It was my normal wash programme for coloureds. The results were quite shocking in fact. The laser print practically disappeared apart from where the fabric got folded together. The inkjet print from the Epson printer faired better, but still faded quite a lot.
This shows the two pieces of fabric after washing:
Laser left, inkjet right
This gives you a comparison of the inkjet print on fabric against a print onto paper from the same printer. It is not a completely fair comparison, because the images are always slightly paler on fabric than on paper, but no way near as much as this.
one wash vs. paper print
So the conclusion is that you should only use fabric printed using an inkjet printer for art quilts that you are not intending to wash a lot. I shall be keeping the Epson printer for my labels and will have to grin and bear its annoying tendency to eat up the paper and to be horribly bossy about when to change the ink cartridges. I hate it when there is no really acceptable solution to a problem.
If anyone has a better idea on how to print onto fabric to give a more permanent result I should be interested to hear.
