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Cyanotype on fabric???????
Hi i had a question about how many times i should prewash the fabric and what kind of fabric works best. i have cotton shirts and pillowcases (200 thread count) and a set of egyptian cotton pillow cases (400 TC). i heard cotton would work but if you guys have any other suggestions or tips it would be greaty appreciated  Thanks!!
oh and how much chemistry should i use? i heard it was 6x as much for paper
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Tang, silk and cotton works well. Silk doesn't need washing, and I had good experience with double boiled / rinsed / dried cotton. There isn't an absolute amnt. for fabric; it depends much on the composition / weight and weaving. Do a couple of experiments; cyanotype chemistry is cheap to buy and/or prepare, don't worry much about the amount. You'll get the feeling very quickly...
Regards,
Loris.
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Hi,
Two washes has worked well for me. To keep chemistry to a minimum, I have also pinned fabric to a board and then sized it with two coats of a 3% gelatine solution. The fabric goes stiff and can be handled just like paper. once the Cyanotype is made, a short soak and then rinses in warm water will dissolve and remove the gelatine. It is worth a few tests as the trick is to get enough gelatine to stop the chemistry soaking right into the fibres, but not too much that the image is only in the gelatine and not the cloth and then all washes out.
The closer the weave of the cloth, the easier it is to capture details in the print. I have done some printing onto linen which was quite coarse and the weave of the fabric becomes very prominent to the eye. As the 'threads' get thicker, they also seem more prone to changing their shape and so fine details that are smaller than the thread size tend to get a bit distorted and lost.
Best regards,
Evan
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