We’ve been printing on a poly-silk for several years…lots of it. Until recently we were always able to have an inventory of silk near by and ready to print. Last year we began noticing that our resupply time was taking longer and longer to replenish. While we haven’t received an official “we no longer manufacture this product” it seems to us that what is still available is being passed around from supply vender to supply vender on special order until it’s all gone. At least one vender has said that they no longer carry this product. There was a long time of trial and error before we found a fabric we liked to print on. Most fabrics were not compatible with our printer and inkset. So when we found a poly-silk that worked for us we were very excited. For the last year we have been testing other options and mostly found the same problems we discovered years ago; blurry images, unpredictable colors and just a hot mess of other problems.
As of this week our search is over. We found a great new fabric that prints up beautifully and has many of the same qualities that we are familiar with from our soon to be discontinued poly-silk. What’s even better is that the new prints look nearly identical to the old prints (same color with just a little change in density). All it requires is for us to adjust the image file to be the slightest bit darker. This should make a lot of artists that we print for happy to know that there’s no need to reproof on the new fabric.
So we’re back to printing on fabric…before we really even stopped 🙂 Whew!