Silk Printing

Reviews for Silk Printing

Silk Printing

Printing on silk

from $44.50

Beautiful real natural silk printing on the finest quality Silks and Satins on the market. Use your own de...

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    Ships in 3 - 4 days

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    Delivery $15.95

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    Handmade



Quantity Discount

  • ≥ 3 m2: $65/sq m
  • ≥ 10 m2: $61/sq m 6.3% Discount
  • ≥ 20 m2: $60/sq m 7.8% Discount
  • ≥ 30 m2: $58/sq m 10.9% Discount
  • ≥ 40 m2: $55/sq m 15.5% Discount
  • ≥ 50 m2: $47/sq m 27.8% Discount
  • ≥ 1 m2: $89/sq m
  • ≥ 0.5 m2: $89/sq m
  • Digitally Printed Silk Features:Print on Demand Silks with fast turnover
  • Industry leading print technology
  • Roll width 136cm
  • Max print width 134cm
  • Print and hemming option available
  • Hand-printed, 3 year guarantee

Silk Made Simple

If you need silk printing, you will be pleased to know we have the highest grade real silks, professional colour control and efficient service. We use methods for digitally printing on silk that will be ready in just a few days, so we can get your printed silk out to you fast. We have no minimum order so you can test small panels to see our professional silk print quality.
  • Print on silk fabric with your designs
  • Five different fabric options to choose from
  • Real 100% silk as well as poly silk options
  • Sheer and more opaque options available
  • Digital silk printing using eco-inks
  • Elegant lightweight fabrics to personalise
  • Custom printing on silk with your photos
  • Handmade to order in our studio

Range of Silk Fabrics

Choose from natural silk and silk style fabrics for your craft or dressmaking project.

  • Silk Impression (poly)

    Silk Impression (poly)

    • Max Print:
      1.39m
    • Weight:
      41gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.41m

    Woven real silk alternative. Shiny, shimmery poly face, semi-transparent. Soft and cool against the skin. Clothing, linings, garments.

    Composition:

    100% polyester

  • Real 100% Silk Georgette

    Real 100% Silk Georgette

    • Max Print:
      1.33m
    • Weight:
      50gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.35m

    Transparent, sheer with tight mesh-like quality. Distinctive crepe texture. Soft print. Bridal wear, lingerie, dressmaking.

    Composition:

    100% Silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 6% Warp: 9%

  • Silk Sensation (poly)

    Silk Sensation (poly)

    • Max Print:
      1.4m
    • Weight:
      90gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.42m

    Silk alternative. Solid, plain closed weave. Shiny face, matt reverse. Slight amount of stretch. Nice drape. Bedding, furnishings.

    Composition:

    97% polyester 3% elastane

  • Real 100% Silk Twill

    Real 100% Silk Twill

    • Max Print:
      1.25m
    • Weight:
      54gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.27m

    Lightweight. Soft touch. Fine twill weave. dressmaking, accessories and scarves.

    Composition:

    100% Silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 1.5% Warp: 1%

  • Real 100% Silk Satin

    Real 100% Silk Satin

    • Max Print:
      1.36m
    • Weight:
      85gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.38m

    Durable, smooth, shiny, flowing drape. Natural sheen to face, matt reverse. Scarves, garments, interiors, accessories.

    Composition:

    100% Silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 4% Warp: 2%

  • Wool Silk Blend Plain Weave

    Wool Silk Blend Plain Weave

    • Max Print:
      1.4m
    • Weight:
      113gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.42m

    70% wool, 30% silk. Woven in Italy. Light cream base colour, open plain weave. An airy, light, flowing, soft yet strong quality, Suitable for scarves and fashion. Expect shrinkage 5% weft, 8% warp. Super bright colours and deep blacks using reactive ink chemistry.

    Composition:

    70% wool 30% silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 5% Warp: 3.5%

  • Real 100% Silk Crepe de Chine

    Real 100% Silk Crepe de Chine

    • Max Print:
      1.37m
    • Weight:
      60gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.39m

    100% pure Silk.16mm or 60gsm. Off white base colour with a sparkle. Soft lightweight fine quality, with a crepe finish and light ribs in the weft. Airy, light, flowing, soft yet strong. Expect shrinkage 5% weft, 8% warp.

    Composition:

    100% Silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 5% Warp: 9%

  • Real 100% Light Silk Satin

    Real 100% Light Silk Satin

    • Max Print:
      1.36m
    • Weight:
      50gsm
    • Roll Width:
      1.38m

    Real Silk Satin 50gsm. 12 Momme lighter weight. Shiny face, luxury handle, beautiful drape. Soft, strong colours, good detail. Uses: light scarves and accessories, fine detailing. Super bright colours & deep blacks using reactive ink chemistry

    Composition:

    100% Silk

    Expected Shrinkage = Weft: 1.5% Warp: 1%

Care instructions

Wash at 30°C, low tumble dry heat, hang to dry, do not wring, low heat iron.

  • Wash At 30 Degrees
  • Wash at 85 Fahrenheit
  • Tumble 1
  • Low Heat

To start this digital silk printing process click Start above, upload your art design or photo and enter the dimensions, and select silk type. It's that simple. We have tools for tile or repeat available, and rulers and controls for you to make sure you get exactly the right custom silk print you need whether it's a single small panel for your print on silk scarves, or your design printed on a few metres of silk.

Please note: these gorgeous silk fabrics are 100% natural, so no chemicals have been used on the fibres and you will get rich intense colours due to our specialist printing method. If in doubt, we always suggest to order a fabric sample or swatch pack before ordering, to see how colours come out on real silk and what the material feels like. Due to the print process large areas of solid colour may show minor blemishes or discolouration. This is to be expected and we would advise avoiding large solid blocks of colour if possible.


Silk Hemming Option For Silk Prints

We have garment production in our facility, so we added the silk hemming option to our print on silk services, especially for people who want to print on silk scarves. For most textile designers or students, digitally printed scarves are quite a common way to start out with getting designs noticed, and they use us for silk digital fabric printing services. We understand the difficulty of hemming the edges of light, slippery fabrics like silks, and how important it is to get the perfect finish. Therefore we added a silk hemming option since we have these skills in-house. Now you can print your own silk scarves and get them hemmed with us for a little extra.  We have a total cut and sew operation here at Contrado the home of Bags of Love. We can add a hem to the exact dimensions you order your silk prints at. We create a small one fold hem that typically uses 5mm of material If you order 100x100cm expect your finished silk fabric to be approx. 99x99cm (after hem and shrinkage). We have black or white thread set up and you choose the best match. On our silk and other light woven fabrics, one hemmed edge will be straight (vertically down the roll) and the other will be slightly rippled due to the silk grain.


Edge Finishing Options:

  • As it comes. We roughly cut around your image, leaving a simple scissor cut (perhaps uneven white fabric border).
  • Hem with thread. We can hem your fabric with a choice of black or white thread. Please allow 1-2 days additional production time. See below for information on how hemming affects the size of your print.
  • Cut on the line. We neatly and precisely cut on the edge of your image.

A Myriad Of Applications

Perfect for making your own size print on silk scarf and wraps, silk ties, luxury garments, lingerie, dresses, and accessories. Fashion designers use it for a wide range of creative and unique ideas. We are experts at making your designs come to life on the highest grade silk with the greatest vibrancy of colour. Couture designers, silk tie makers, bridal and lingerie makers use our custom printed silk. Occasionally film and theatre productions use our services for scene or dressmaking, especially period work. Interior designers also use our digitally printed silk product for specific requirements in fine detailing and luxury finishes. Other crafters and makers use us to print photos on silk for top end quilting as a photo silk print is outstanding when patched into a quilt. Our digital prints on silk provide a wide range of applications and our fast service and support will benefit your project.


Silk Grain Direction

Please note that the grain of the fabric can result in a slightly wavy edge, apparent on 2 sides of the hemmed fabric. This is due to the natural softness of the silk, possible shrinking and the weft. It may also be the case that the weave may be irregular and this is a characteristic of the silk fibre and production process. It is worth noting that digital silk designs that have solid straight lines close to edges may suffer distortion, so we advise keep the design 'lines' if any, a few centimetres from the edges or better still design these risks out.


TIP: The Silk Georgette fabric is an amazing and very delicate stretchy fabric, slightly wavy hems are to be expected. Due the delicate nature and soft handle of the real silks the edges can be wavy after hemming, especially on the Georgette. With Silk Georgette fabric you should expect a fabric shrinkage of approximately 6% on the weft, and 10% on the warp. We print silk on one side, and whilst there is complete show through on the Georgette silk, the satin has limited show through (20%) and in essence one side looks unprinted. You can be assured of intense, strong colours.


Care of your printed silk: Treat this beautiful material well and it will stay silky and bright for year after year. We recommend dry cleaning only. Wet washing will damage the natural silk textile and print. Treat carefully, as it is a delicate material that can pull if caught.

Silk Printing

Your silk printing options include classic and now reactive printing technology for many of our silk variants. Classic printing will provide your silk with a cool and mellow surface print, while reactive printing will infuse the fabric with ink, creating lasting and bright design with a higher wash allowance.

With our extensive knowledge of fabric printing, we offer full colour print onto 100% silk using the latest reactive printing methods. This specialist printing method bonds the dyes to the fabric fibres to create long-lasting, superior colour depth, and rub fastness. Printed and produced in our facility, we offer you an extremely high quality real silk (not synthetic) with your design, or photos printed on silk for small pieces or long runs. We are a one stop for single silk prints and one of the only silk printing companies around. We buy the plain and perfect silk from specialist expert provider wit hover 100 years of supplying the finest silk fabrics to the fashion, interiors and bridal industries, then we expertly apply your design ensuring the highest print and production standards are being met. If you are thinking about silk printing vs. screen printing the short run solution will win hands down.

Print Guideline

  • DPI-Print Guideline Icon

    What's the best resolution to print in?

    We print at 200dpi, which is a good combination of quality and file weight. Ideally, your image should be scaled to 100% at 200dpi; this means that no resizing of your file occurs, preventing any interpolation. Our design interface will have a quality marker next to the design that you have uploaded, this will change colour using a traffic light system and display a message. The message will let you know if the resolution is too low or if you have a good quality image. 

  • scaling-Print Guideline Icon

    How will my image scale?

    When you upload your design our system will automatically scale it to fit your chosen fabric dimensions. In the ‘Product Options’ tab, the displayed dimensions under ‘Print Size’ will show the dimensions of the piece of fabric that you are ordering. For image/design dimensions you need to see the ‘Images & Text Tools’ tab. You can see and edit the dimensions of the image under the quality information next to the thumbnail.

  • RGB-CMYK Print Guideline Icon

    Which colour model should I choose? RGB or CMYK?

    We advise providing images in the RGB colour space. Specifically using the sRGB image profile, to achieve best colour results. What does this mean? In your editing software choose RGB as the working space, and assign the image profile as sRGB (full name sRGB IEC61966-2.1)

  • Print-Roll Length Fabric Guide Icon

    Maximum dimensions

    For most of our fabrics, there is no limit on the length of the fabric that you can order. We have a preview design window set up to 10m max to visualise the print, but that's not a print limit. If you'd like to order more, increase the quantity (x2 for 20m or x4 for 40m for example) and then you can order as much as you'd like, with a built-in automatic volume discount too. The maximum print width of each fabric can be found on the individual fabric pages or in our design interface.

  • Borders-Print Guideline Icon

    Do I need to incorporate white space within my design if I want a border or some cutting space?

    Yes, that might help you! Always incorporate any extra space or boarders into your purchased fabric size. We trim squarely around fabric samples and fabric prints, leaving approximately 5mm white space. Cutting neatly on the line has an additional fee.

  • crocking-Print Guideline Icon

    What is crocking and why might it occur?

    Crocking, which is fading along the creases, often after washing or heavy use, occurs when you digitally print on natural fabrics - more so when dark or dense colours are used. It can be minimised by using a cool hand wash instead of machine washing as the tumbling of the machine is the main cause of this. To avoid entirely, we would advise using a poly fabric.

  • organics-Print Guideline Icon

    Why do my colours appear lighter on organic fabrics?

    Our organic fabrics do not have any coatings that the non-organic fabrics have. This means the ink absorbs into the fibres, reducing the colour strength slightly (by approx. -40%). For super strong colours we recommend a non-organic natural fabric.

  • Transfer-Print Guideline Icon

    Do you print on fabric a customer supplies?

    Unfortunately not; we like to test meticulously so that we know what gets best results on our fabrics, and our facilities cater perfectly to them. We do however print sublimation paper to order, and if you have access to a heat press you can press your own fabrics easily.

  • Jpeg-Tiff Print Guideline Icon

    Should I save my file as a TIFF or JPEG?

    For multi-coloured or very detailed files we recommend using a tiff format, but they must be flattened. For simple colours and low detail files, a jpeg is fine.

  • Shrinkage-Print Guideline Icon

    What is the situation with material shrinkage?

    Just like many fabric printing processes, there is the potential for shrinkage. Depending on the fabric, please expect and allow between 2-8% shrinkage which you need to plan for in your dimensions. This percentage can vary from print run to print run and between fabrics, so we would advise ordering a little more material than you require for your project. 

  • Print-Both Sides Print Guideline Icon

    Can I print on both sides of the fabric?

    We do not offer to print on both sides of the fabric. A lot of our fabrics are semi-transparent or have some show through and this wouldn't work with double-sided printing. This is not a service that we offer on any of our fabrics.

  • Labels-Print Guideline Icon

    Can I order labels in another fabric? Would you cut them as you do with the normal fabric labels?

    At the moment no, our labels are all printed on the same satin fabric. We may introduce more in the future, but for now, this is the best choice. The labels are all cut the same way. You can order the fabric of your choice and make the labels yourself, but we do not cut different fabric into label format.

  • Eco friendly Printing

    How is your fabric printing eco-friendly?

    With environmental consciousness in mind, our fabrics are all printed using completely water-based inks. This means no chemicals or solvents are used. Our heat fixing procedure fixes the colours and prints, avoiding the downsides of steaming, such as excess or contaminated water returning into the waste system. We have one facility in London where we conduct all the printing, production and fulfilment. Rather than roll the fabrics, or send them in a tube, we fold them before they are sent out to you. This saves over 150 tubes a week, as well as a lot of space on the delivery van. (For delicate fabrics we ensure to package appropriately).

  • colour palette

    Why are there slight colour differences between my orders?

    We work at improving our colour profiles all the time. Though rare it may happen that from one print run to another, and there could be slight colour differences, this is normal and part of the process when we are constantly improving. It is extremely unlikely that there will be a huge difference (like orange instead of red for example). Please bear in mind such colour variations can be intensified from fabric to fabric due to the varying grains and textures of the fabric; natural fabrics tend to have more muted colours than their poly alternatives. This is due to the construction of the materials as well as the print methods that have to be altered slightly for more delicate, natural textiles.




Sizing For Hemming And Shrinkage

Hemming Options ICON

We have a full Cut & Sew service here at Bags of Love, and are able to hem your fabric prints for a small additional charge. We create a small one- or two-fold hem that typically uses 5 to 20mm of material, depending on the thickness of the fabric. So, for example, if you want a finished piece of fabric that measures 100 x 100cm, you will need to order a size of 101.5cm x 101.5cm to allow for the hem (on top of that please also allow for shrinkage of min 2%). The thicker the fabric, the bigger the hem will be. You can choose to have your prints hemmed with either Black or White thread. On our silk and other light woven fabrics, one hemmed edge will be straight (vertically down the roll) and the other will be slightly rippled. The hemming material allowances are as follows and you need to make your print bigger to accommodate the hem:

  • Light Fabrics (20-100gsm): For silks and other light fabrics, we use 6-8mm in the hem (2 fold), so overall width/height will be minus 12-16mm
  • Medium Fabrics (101-200gsm): For medium-weight fabrics that fray, we use 15-20mm in the hem (2 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
  • Stiff/Heavy/No-fray fabrics: we use 15-20mm in the hem (1 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
All of these measurements are approximate and can vary. Including with shrinkage, it can mean a fairly significant difference to ordered dimensions, so please plan your print accordingly. Depending on how open the weave is, our fabric can shrink anywhere from 2% to 8% with the average being 2.5%.
 

How Would you Like the Edge?

We have four finishing options for your fabric order: 
  • As it comes. We cut around your image, leaving a simply scissor cut, perhaps uneven white fabric border. 
  • Hem with thread. We can hem your fabric with a choice of black or white thread. Please allow 1-2 days of additional production time. See below for information on how hemming affects the size of your print. We offer an overlock hem, as well as a folded hem (one or two fold depending on the fabric) however not all fabrics, are suited to both hem types. If you can see both options, it means both are suitable, and you will be able to choose whichever you prefer. 
  • Cut on the line. We will cut neatly on the edge of your design. This means that if you have a border around your design we will cut around that border, if your design takes the whole space of the fabric, then we will neatly cut around the edge of that image. Please be aware, when we cut along the line, we have to cut against the grain of the fabric. This is the standard procedure for fabric cutting. This means that with some fabrics, for example, Georgette and Mulmul, which have a slight wave in them, some fraying will occur. This is unavoidable, as the cut follows the grain of the textile. 
All of our fabrics are cut manually by hand, with the utmost care and attention. If your fabric has a slightly uneven look on the edges or a touch of fraying, this does not indicate a flaw in the textile. It is not always possible to achieve a perfect straight cut with certain fabrics, so please do bear this in mind when it comes to your design. If you have any queries or would like to know about our cutting methods in more detail, please get in touch and we will be more than happy to discuss them with you. 

For further information about our fabrics see our FAQs

Please note: As everything we provide is handmade to order, you may find a slight variance in the sizes. 

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