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Mis-print Monday. Out Damn Spot. Sorry, not.

A garment dyed shirt is a wonderful thing, comfortable and they come in beautiful colors. However, there are a few limitations that go along with these shirts and one is that you cannot remove the ink if you make a mistake. Best practices for garment dyed shirts: 1. Use a good emulsion 2. Get a thorough…

Canned Cleverness

We printed some sample Nano shirts for Hanes and we at one point discussed some clever packaging ideas, but I forgot about all that until today when a can of Nano arrived. They are nice soft shirts that actually fit more than teenagers and I enjoyed receiving the clever packaging that promotes these good shirts.…

Trends. New Orleans, Nashville and Beyond. A Trip to Simple.

I just spent some time in New Orleans at the Jazz and Heritage Festival with 460,000 other music lovers, most of them wearing t-shirts. Then I was in Nashville at the ISS show with shirt vendors and fellow garment decorators. Add in a few forays into gift shops and airport stores and I have a…

T-Shirt Capitalization

There was actually a time (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) when t-shirts were more of a promotional item. Now they can be the major source of financing (I think Indian Motorcycles relaunch was in that category.) At the opening of the new Professor Longhair Museum in New Orleans there was no admission fee, they were…

Happy Earth Day!

April 22 is Earth Day. Happy Earth Day! Earth Day started in 1970. There are some real great proponents of environmentalism in our industry. Some simple advice on Earth Day: – use the greenest products you can and when you use them, do it responsibly. A great example is to use roll adhesive which will…

Don’t Be a Cheap Bastard

Stop being penny wise and pound foolish. Saving twenty dollars and buying a gallon of inexpensive but inferior emulsion is a terrible idea. Inferior emulsions don’t have the resolution of most of the more expensive emulsions because they don’t have the solids content. Without the resolution you will you lose detail in your printing.  …

Web Wednesday: Color Me Pantone

The Pantone color of the year for 2015 is Marsala. That is one of the many fascinating things to learn on the Pantone site. Very useful is conversion software that gets you as close as possible to the coated and uncoated colors (which we use to match ink colors) from the textile and other pantone…

Mis-print Monday – A Sticky Subject, Platen Adhesive

I can’t show it, but we warped a print last week and have to set up the job again today to print one piece for a good customer that has to have this small order perfect. We put too much adhesive on the platen and warped the print when we yanked it off the press. Those…

Spring is Not Just Flowers: Screen and Substrate Moisture Issues

After the winter of our discontent, well at least in our Northern climes, Spring is (almost) here. Thoughts turn to verse: You can’t see Canada across lake Erie, but you know it’s there.  It’s the same with spring.  You have to have faith, especially in Cleveland.  ~Paul Fleischman People ask me what I do in…

Web Wednesday -What Color is the Dress? What does it mean for Garment Decorators?

I found the best scientific explanation of the white gold vs blue black dress debate which has been raging on social media on the Wired Magazine site. It mainly has to do with the context and adjustments your eyes make. This is just an extreme case where it falls right on the boundary of interpretation. If…

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