Silk Printing

Reviews for 100% Real Silk Printing

Silk Printing

Printing on silk Made in the UK Made in the UK

from £14.75

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

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Discounts

  • ≥ 3 m2: £29/sq m
  • ≥ 10 m2: £28/sq m 1.8% Discount
  • ≥ 20 m2: £27/sq m 5.3% Discount
  • ≥ 30 m2: £26/sq m 8.8% Discount
  • ≥ 40 m2: £25/sq m 12.3% Discount
  • ≥ 50 m2: £20/sq m 29.8% Discount
  • ≥ 1 m2: £30/sq m
  • ≥ 0.5 m2: £30/sq m

Digitally Printed Silk Features:

  • Print on Demand Silks with fast turnover
  • Industry leading print technology
  • Quantity discounts available
  • Roll width 136 cm
  • Print and hemming available
  • Max print width of 134 cm

Digital Printing on Silk Fabric 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 fabric out to you fast. We have no minimum order so you can test small panels to see our professional silk print quality.
  • Multiple 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 London, UK

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

    Light weight, soft and non-stretch with a matte finish. Made from 100% natural silk. Available in high quality reactive printing with wider colour depth and higher wash allowance.

    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:

    100% Polyester

  • 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. Available in high quality reactive printing with wider colour depth and higher wash allowance.

    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. 85gsm. Natural sheen to face, matt reverse. Scarves, garments, interiors, accessories. Available in high quality reactive printing with wider colour depth and higher wash allowance.

    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 and finished in England. Light cream base colour, open plain weave. An airy, light, flowing, soft yet strong quality, Suitable for scarves and fashion. 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.

    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

Real silk printing

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 ordering a fabric sample or swatch pack before ordering, to see how colours come out on real silk and what the material feels like.  With Silk Georgette fabric you should expect a fabric shrinkage of approximately 6% on the weft, and 10% on the warp. 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

Digital printing on silk fabric is 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 keeping 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 to the delicate nature and soft handle of the real silks, the edges can be wavy after hemming, especially on the Georgette. 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, rich 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.

Discount

For more information regarding a wholesale discount on silk printing, please feel free to get in contact with our lovely customer service team.

 

Expert silk printing

Your silk printing options include classic and new 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-house in west London, 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 a specialist expert provider with over 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 in London UK vs. screen printing the short run solution will win hands down.

 

Print Guideline

  • DPI-Print Guideline Icon

    What resolution is best for printing?

    All of our fabrics are printed at 200dpi. This works for us as it combines a great quality as we as a good file weight. In order to avoid resizing and interpolation, we recommend that you scale your image to 100% at 200dpi. Our design interface works with a traffic light system that acts as a quality marker for your designs. This will show you whether the resolution is too low for printing. When you re-upload your design with a highest resolution, the traffic lights will change colour, showing you're good to go. A message will pop up alongside the traffic lights to let you know if the resolution is too low or if you have a good quality image. 

  • scaling-Print Guideline Icon

    Will my image be scaled to fit?

    Your uploaded design will automatically be scaled to fit the size of fabric you've chosen. You can change the dimensions of your fabric by amending the measurements on the ‘Product Options’ tab, under ‘Print Size’. To see how this fits with the dimensions of your image/design, you can refer to the ‘Images & Text Tools’ tab under 'Quality Information'. Here, you will be able to edit the dimensions of the image.

  • RGB-CMYK Print Guideline Icon

    Should I choose RGB or CMYK?

    We always recommend using an RGB colour space when you upload your images. More specifically, we suggest using the sRGB image profile, to achieve best colour results. This will need to be done 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

    Is there a maximum length I can print on?

    There is no length limit for most of our fabrics. Our preview design window is set up to displaying a maximum of 10m to help you visualise the print, but that doesn't mean this is the print limit. If you'd like to order more, you can increase the quantity (x2 for 20m or x4 for 40m for example) and order as much as you'd like. Larger volumes will receive an automatic discount too. While the fabric length is nothing to worry about, each individual fabric will have a maximum width side: These can be found on the fabric's page information or in the design interface. 

  • Borders-Print Guideline Icon

    Should I add white space for borders or cutting onto my design? 

    Yes, that will help you when it comes to cutting or framing your printed fabric. We recommend always adding a little extra space for borders into your purchased fabric size. When we print your materials, or send out fabric samples, we typically trim squarely around the fabric, leaving approximately 5mm white space. Cutting neatly on the line has an additional fee.

  • crocking-Print Guideline Icon

    What is crocking?

    Crocking is the term used to describe fading along the creases in a fabric. It typically can occur after constant washing or heavy use of digitally printed natural fabrics. Crocking can be minimised by hand washing your fabrics at a cooler temperature, rather than machine washing. If you want to make sure there's no chance of crocking, we'd suggest you use a poly fabric. 

  • organics-Print Guideline Icon

    Is it normal for colours to appear lighter on organic fabrics?

    Yes, our organic fabrics don't have an additional coating like non-organic fabrics have, which means it absorbs the inks deep into its fibre and reducing the colour strength slightly (this can be approximately -40%). If you would like a bolder, more vibrant colour for your fabric, we would suggest using a non-organic fabric. 

  • Transfer-Print Guideline Icon

    Can I supply my own fabric for you to print onto?

    Unfortunately not; all of our fabrics have been tested meticulously to ensure we know exactly how to get the best results, and our facilities cater perfectly to them. If you are set on a fabric we don't offer, we can offer custom printed sublimation paper to order which will allow you to heat press your designs onto your own fabrics.

  • Jpeg-Tiff Print Guideline Icon

    Which is a better image format: TIFF or JPEG?

    If your design is simple and less intricate, a JPEG will be absolutely fine. However, if you have created a design with multi-coloured detailing, we would recommend saving your design in a TIFF format. 

  • Shrinkage-Print Guideline Icon

    Will my material shrink during printing?

    Similar to other fabric printing processes, shrinkage can occur. The amount of shrinkage will depend on the fabric, but as a general rule of thumb, please allow for 2-8% shrinkage when working out your measurements. Shrinkage is not an exact science, and the amount of shrinkage will vary from print run to print run. We'd always suggest order a little more than you need for your project. 

  • Print-Both Sides Print Guideline Icon

    Can I order double sided printed fabric?

    Many of the fabrics we offer are semi-transparent, so printing on both sides of the fabric is not a service we offer. 

  • Labels-Print Guideline Icon

    Can I order labels in a different fabric? Are the labels cut like normal fabric labels?

    At the moment, all of our fabric labels are printed on satin fabric. For now, we believe this is the best choice, but will potentially introduce other options in the future. All labels are cut to the same label format. If you would like to choose a different fabric and format for your labels, you could always order a sheet of the fabric of your choice to create labels yourself. 

  • Eco friendly Printing

    How do you print your fabrics in an eco-friendly way?

    Our fabrics are printed with water-based inks as environmental consciousness is always front of our minds. Water-based inks include no chemicals or solvents, and our printing process uses heat to fix colours and patterns into place to avoid excess or contaminated water returning into the water system (this is something that can occur through steaming). All printing, fulfilment and production is done in our one facility in London, and rather than rolling the fabrics or sending them in a tube, you will receive your material folded up. This amounts to 150 tubes saved a week, as well as much more space on the delivery van for more orders. (For delicate fabrics we ensure to package appropriately).

  • colour palette

    Will there be slight colour differences between my orders?

    Although very rare, there could be a slight colour difference from one print run to another. This is a normal part of the printing process, however we are always working to improve our colour profiles. It is unlikely that  the difference in print runs will be hugely different (for example, it's unlikely your orange is suddenly going to be red). The likelihood of colour variations can be intensified fabric to fabric due to materials having different grains and textures; natural fabrics typically have more muted colour tones, while poly alternatives have a bolder hue. This is because the construction of the material is different, and the printing method has to be altered slightly for more delicate, natural textiles.


Sizing For Hemming And Shrinkage

Hemming Options ICON

Our full cut & sew service at Bags of Love can be used to your full advantage. We even offer hemming for your fabrics at a small additional cost. Our hems are created with a one or two cold hem that typically uses around 5 to 20mm of fabric (depending on the thickness of your chosen material). Please bare this in mind when you are ordering your printed fabric with hems: If you would like your finished piece to be 100cm x 100cm, change your dimensions to 101.5cm instead to allow space for your hems (you will also need to include additional for potential shrinkage). The thicker the fabric, the bigger the hem will be. Your printed fabric will be hemmed with either Black or White thread. If you are ordering a lightly woven material or a printed silk, you will find that one hem will be straight, while the other 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 can vary and should only be seen as an approximation. If you allow for hems and slight shrinkage, it can add a fairly significant amount to your ordered dimensions, so please make sure to consider these things prior to ordering. Depending on how open the weave is, our fabric can shrink anywhere from 2% to 8% with the average being 2.5%.
 

Choose From Three Finishes

We have three finishing options available: 
  • As it comes: We simply cut around your image with scissors - leaving a perhaps uneven white border. 
  • Hem with thread: We can offer your fabric hemmed with a black or white thread. This will add an additional 1-2 days of production time to your order. Please refer to the dimensions above to gauge how the hemming will affect the size of your print. You will have a choice of an overlock hem or folded hem (one or two fold depending on the fabric) however not all fabrics are suited to both hem types. In the design interface, you will be able to see which options are available to you. If you can only see one hem available, this means that this is the only suitable hem for this material type. 
  • Cut on the line: Rather than our 'as it comes' option, we will cut neatly on the edge of your design against the grain of the fabric. If you have a border around your design we will cut around that border. If the design takes up the whole fabric, we will neatly cut around the edge of the image. Cutting against the grain is standard for fabric cutting, and as such lighter materials such as Georgette or Mulmul will have a slight wave in them, and some fraying may occur. 
All of our fabrics are carefully hand cut. It is not always possible to maintain a perfectly straight cut for certain fabrics, so please bear this is mind if you see your edge has a slightly uneven look or a little fraying. This is not a flaw in the material. 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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