EQ Printables Premium Cotton Lawn sheets

The following is a review on the photo fabric sheets from the Electric Quilt Company used for the anniversary quilt project I recently completed.

The photo fabric sheets come backed with a thin plastic film which allows for easy feeding through a desktop inkjet printer.  There were only a few times that I had problems with the sheets feeding through, and each time I had my top margin set less than 1 inch.  When I set my top margin to 2 inches, I never had a problem with a sheet getting stuck.  One of the tips that came with the directions suggested taping over the edge if one had problems, but I found that adjusting the top margin via the print dialog box from the photo editing software was all it took for me.

I cropped each photo used in the quilt to a pre-determined size needed for the patchwork.  Most of my picture sizes needed to be 3 1/2″ square, including seam allowances.  The directions suggest to print a little larger than what you need to factor in shrinkage, should it occur.  So, instead of printing a size 3.5″ x 3.5″, I printed 3.7″ x 3.7″.  In the end, I found this unnecessary.  I did not experience any shrinkage after the product soaked and dried.  If anything, printing the pictures slightly larger caused problems.  For example, each photo I cropped around the subject to make the image as square as possible.  When cropping a photo of a large group, I cropped close to the person on each end of the photo.  When I went to trim the photo down to 3.5″ square, I’d find myself cutting into a person on the end.  When working with a single subject, like a school picture, for example, I didn’t have problems because I had room on each side of the head for trimming and for the seam allowance.  I ended up reprinting many of those group photos again at 3.5″ and trimming right to the edge of the photo and that worked much better.

I used Irfanview – a free downloadable photo editing program – to crop, resize and set print margins for each photo.  When I printed the photos, I would print one in the upper left corner, then use the same sheet for the second photo, changing the print margins to print in the upper right corner.  Because of the picture sizes I was using, I was able to print 4 images per sheet of photo fabric. 

Once printing was complete, the directions say to allow 15 minutes for the ink to dry.  Because I began the printing process in the evening, I went ahead and let the fabric dry overnight, although it wasn’t necessary.  The next step was removing the film from the back of the fabric and soaking the sheet in room temperature water for 10 minutes to remove excess ink.  The directions also recommend using distilled water, but I didn’t have any around so I didn’t use it.  I tested one sheet first using plain tap water, didn’t experience any problems, and then soaked the rest of the sheets in the same way.  After soaking, I let the photo fabric air dry and then used an iron on medium-high heat over the back of the fabric to press.

Overall, I was very impressed and would definitely use the product again and would recommend it to others.  The one thing I would point out is that the sheets have a very high thread count of 240 threads/inch.  I suppose it has to be so tightly woven for good photo resolution, but regular quilting fabric is between 60 – 80 threads/inch, so when they are joined side by side in patchwork, they handle a bit differently.  For example, when pinning the fabrics, I removed the pin in the photo fabric to find a tiny hole in its place.  I wasn’t planning to launder the quilt afterwards, which can sometimes heal those tiny holes – so from that point on I only pinned the photo fabric in the seam allowance.  Also, the photo fabric didn’t seem to press as flat as when one is sewing 2 patches of quilting cotton together.  All in all, not a major drawback or deal breaker, just something to watch.

The one last suggestion, and again this is just preference, but I wished I would have used a low-loft 100% cotton batting.  I used a 70/30 cotton/poly blend with a mid-loft.  Because I didn’t quilt over the photo fabric, it puffed out compared to the areas I’d quilted in.  Not a major thing, just something I’d do differently next time because of my personal preferences.