Although it’s a little late in the season, a vocal contingency of our players asked me on Friday about getting new shirts. Since I kept the screen from last year’s t-shirt run, I can print the shirts without too much trouble. The only challenging part is actually buying the shirts and/or getting them delivered in time for our double-header later this week.

The major difference between this year’s shirt and the one from 2010 is that I’m printing white shirts with the design in black ink. We did that for the tank tops that were for sale at the Library Bar, and I thought they looked better than the ones we made for the team. Evidently the design works better when it’s printed with a dark-colored ink on a light-colored medium, such as a white shirt.

As soon as I get the shirts, I’ll post pictures of the printing process and of the finished product.

Last Saturday was a surprise bachelorette party for our good friend Molly, who is getting married to Sam at the end of this month.  Part of the festivities included fuchsia-colored t-shirts, which we printed last week, and fake beards for everyone. Since the party was a surprise, I didn’t post the pictures until today so as to keep the shirts under wraps.

The printing project was a nice simple one, only fifteen pieces, printed in one color (black), and once we had the screen burned, it took us all of ten minutes to print the shirts. The process was fairly basic, consisting of the following steps:

1. Buy shirts
2. Design your artwork, using a vector graphics program such as Illustrator or Inkscape.
3. Print your artwork on to a transparent paper. I prefer using vellum made of acetate to the transparencies one used for those ancient overhead projectors.
4. Burn the screen. We almost always go to the print shop at ABC No Rio for their weekly skill share nights, usually Wednesdays and Thursdays.
5. Once the screen is burned, prepare the textile ink using a bonding agent and/or a retarder, such as propylene glycol.
6. Print using a squeegee, designed for screen printing and for your screen’s mesh count and your ink’s viscosity.
7. Hang to dry, preferably overnight.
8. Heat treat the ink on your shirts, using an iron or trouser press at about 300° F.

I didn’t go to the party, of course, but I heard that the shirts were a hit… and that the beards were itchy.

This week’s job came at the last minute, on Sunday, for delivery on Sunday. But I’m leaving town tomorrow so tonight was the deadline, which is fine because that’s when Ray at ABC No Rio is working, and I don’t know if I can print without his help.

So here’s what I learned this time around:

• UNIQLO in SoHo has really cheap shirts! But my first-world guilt makes me anxious to use them since they’re yet another overseas production operation and because when they sell shirts, they’re in a ridiculous amount of packing. Opening each t-shirt was like opening a pack of beef jerky. It’sokay,UNIQLO, the t-shirts won’t go bad. Also, short-sleeve t-shirts are seasonal for them so once the summer is over, it’s hard to get what you want.
• We all know that printing with white, water-based ink can suck. It not only doesn’tcompletely cover your dark colors, but it also dries in the screen, which can significantly increase production time. Today, the ink I was using was good for exactly one test print. You know, the one you do on paperbefore you ruin a shirt. So in a desperation move, I mixed in some propylene glycol, or at least I think that’s what was in that bottle, as nearly a 1:5 ratio. Well I can report that despite the bad smell of my ink — does propylene glycol even smell — the ink didn’t dry. Normally, white ink leads to some very thick prints, but not today. Now, after nearly an hour of waiting for the ink to air dry, it’s coming out okay. I just hope that when I heat treat the shirts that theydon’t make me pass out from the fumes.
• And I think my favorite burrito place, Neighburrito on Rivington Street might have closed for good. The gate was down at 7:30. Why?!?!?!

Social Text turns 30 years old this year, and they have commissioned Sarah and myself to print their commemorative tshirts and tote bags. So far we’ve split the duties tonight. She and Lily and printing the tote bags and I have come to the Lower East Side to burn the screens for the t-shirts.

My job is usually really easy except that we have to adjust the size of the print for each shirt size. After toting around a bunch of screens on the subway, we are burning each screen. Pictured is one we did and it looks like it’s coming out fine.

Anyway this is going to be a long night, and I have an early morning class to teach tomorrow. Come to think about it I might take a taxi back to avoiding carrying around all those screens.

Social Text turns 30 years old this year, and they have commissioned Sarah and myself to print their commemorative tshirts and tote bags. So far we’ve split the duties tonight. She and Lily and printing the tote bags and I have come to the Lower East Side to burn the screens for the t-shirts.