Heat transfer dyes are used mainly to dye synthetic fabrics. Heat transfer dyes transfer the dye to the fabric by heat, not only does the heat help to transfer the dye but also helps to seal the dye into the fabric.
I started by creating a labelled colour chart that displays all of the different dyes. This gives you a rough idea when choosing a dye the colour it will be, the dye is usually a lot brighter once you have put it in the heat press so you need to keep that in mind when choosing your dye colour. However, if you keep re-using a dyed piece of paper that has already been in the heat press the dye colour will not be a strong as when you first used it and each time it will be not as bright and more faded.
After this I choose 3 different coloured dyes and painted 3 full pages with them. I then left them to dry ready to start experimenting and to start creating some different patterns and effects.
This is the make of heat transfer dyes that I used.
The heat transfer dyes work best on synthetic materials, so therefore I created all my designs using these dyes onto synthetic fabrics and nettings.
I started by cutting strips from my three different colours of dyed paper to create a weave to then print on my fabric.
On the heat press you can adjust the length of time that you dye needs to be in there, as sometimes your piece only needs 15 seconds, whilst others may need 30 seconds. When you put your fabric and dyed piece of paper in the heat press, you need to put it between two pieces of greaseproof paper this allows you to easily put in and remove your work from the heat press that is very hot and this will also stop any dye or anything sticky sticking to the plate of the heat press.
The best thing to do is to first of all put a piece of greaseproof down, then on top of that put your fabric and then place your dyed fabric face down on that and finally the greeseproof on top. If you put your dyed fabric on top the heat will be going through the paper first before the fabric and this should give you better results.
I then printed my weave onto a synthetic fabric in the heat press.
I then used the same weave again but this time I put two leaves between the fabric and the weave and printed it again.
The leaves also got printed by the dye from the weave so I then placed the leaves face down on a piece of fabric and put that in the heat press.
I then created a few more samples ..
For this sample I just roughly cut 3 strips of dyed paper and placed a leaf in there as well before putting it in the heat press. Once the sample had come out of the heat press I turned the dyed leaf over before placing it back in the heat press for 15 seconds to create this sample.
I then cut 2 squares and a rectangle and placed 2 pieces of Cypress, Lawson one piece has already dried out, I wanted to see if it would give a bit of an unusual shape.
The squares and the rectangles were all meant to be touching but they must have slightly slipped as I was putting it in the heat press.
For my last few samples I decided to create my prints on netting.
For this sample I decided to cut a variety of different triangles all different sizes and also all a different colour I then put a leaf in as well before arranging the triangles around it.
The leaf was also dyed by the triangles so I decided to place that on another piece of netting and put that back in the heat press.
Creating lots of different samples using the heat press and heat press dyes is very easy and quick. I am pleased with the samples I have created and I hope to develop my samples further using this method.
Unpicking Fashion 