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Rodney · November 2nd, 2009

It's been a few months and I wanted to update everyone on the progress of the 2009 T-ShirtForums T-Shirt Design EXTRAVAGANZA t-shirts.

For those that are new, each year we have a t-shirt design contest here at T-ShirtForums and the wining designer wins a cool cash prize and their design gets printed and given out to forum members with X amount of posts.

Each year has a different theme. This year's winning design entry on the theme of "POTENTIAL" was "Open Your Eyes" by sharonses

There were a couple of things holding up the printing of this cool design:

The complexity of the design. As you can see in the mockup, the design sort of wraps around from the front to the back.

So we had to find a skilled printer who would be able to tackle and print this high end style placement.

We found exactly what we need in Dallas, Texas based screen printers Pony Printing. If you check their blog, you can see they have the skills to handle all types of speciality high end screen printing techniques.

After working with the team at Pony Printing (PXP Inc), I'm confident that the finished t-shirts will be well worth the wait.

They will be screen printed with water based inks so it will be hard to tell the ink from the t-shirt
We wanted to use a top of the line blank t-shirt to really showcase the printing.

One of our forum sponsors, Bare Apparel (usa based manufacturers of high end fashion forward blank t-shirts) was kind enough to donate the blank garments for the order.

One reason why we picked Bare Apparel was their ability to supply the printer with what's known as a "butterflied t-shirt". This is a t-shirt that is open on the sides so they can be easily printed with jumbo or all over prints. After the t-shirt is printed, the garment is then sewn back together (either by the screen printer or by the manufacturer) to make a complete finished product!

Bare Apparel recently completed a move from AZ to setup offices closer to their Los Angeles based production center. Now that the dust has settled down and the shirt sizes needed are all tallied, the garments will be sent to Pony Printing and scheduled for production.

I'll check with PXP, but hopefully the t-shirts can be printed within the next few weeks.

Thanks for your patience. If anyone has any questions at all, please feel free to post them here

sunnydayz · November 2nd, 2009

Yay I cant wait, I love love love that design

That is awesome that bare apparel donated the blanks. Very cool.

Hey I wonder if that printing place would make a little video of one of the shirts being printed. That would be really cool to see a butterfly print

Ok I can dream right? hehe.

Thanks for the update Rodney, always interesting to see how the whole process comes along.

Rodney · November 2nd, 2009

Quote:


	Hey I wonder if that printing place would make a little video of one of the shirts being printed. That would be really cool to see a butterfly print

That's what I'm hoping for. They take some great photos of their past prints for their blog, so I'm hoping a video might be possible

MotoskinGraphix · November 2nd, 2009

Bare Apparel...thats nice as I wanted a sample. I still want a couple wash samples.

CoopersDesignCo · November 5th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotoskinGraphix


	Bare Apparel...thats nice as I wanted a sample. I still want a couple wash samples.

David, You'll love 'em. They're soft, distressed, and unique. I use them for the few designs that are my best sellers.

tskid · November 12th, 2009

Hey Rodney, who did you deal with over at PXP?

Rodney · November 17th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by tskid


	Hey Rodney, who did you deal with over at PXP?

I've talked to a few people over there, but currently I'm dealing with Scott at PXP. Why do you ask?

tskid · November 17th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	I've talked to a few people over there, but currently I'm dealing with Scott at PXP. Why do you ask?

Scott has been helping me out for the past month, he has probably answered about a million questions for me lol. He is the man.

BlackSheepHybrid · November 21st, 2009

that is an epic project for sure

Rodney · November 25th, 2009

Here's some info from Bare Apparel on the butterflied t-shirts that will be used for this project.

What are "butterflied t-shirts"?

Butterfly shirts are sewn at the bottom hem, then left open along the seam all the way to the hem of the sleeve where they are sewn together again.

By having the t-shirts in "panels", it makes it easier for screen printers to do the creative placements that is often found in high fashion t-shirt designs.

This is a PFD (Prepared For Dye) butterflied t-shirt:
IMG_1478.JPG

Here's the same PFD t-shirt held open:
IMG_1479.JPG

A dyed (lava wash) butterfied t-shirt laid on top of a PFD butterfly of the same size-- you can see the shrink from PFD to dyed shirt:
IMG_1480.JPG

Another pic of the dyed shirt on top of the butterfly with the seam slightly open:
IMG_1482.JPG

Unik Ink · November 25th, 2009

I ordered a few butterflied samples from Bare Apparel. I don't see how they help with printing? I could maybe see if they were completely butterflied with only the shoulder seam holding them together, but the bottom is connected so it still requires the shirt to be layed flat on top of a platen for printing. Still 2 layers of shirt to print over.

splathead · November 27th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unik Ink


	I ordered a few butterflied samples from Bare Apparel. I don't see how they help with printing? I could maybe see if they were completely butterflied with only the shoulder seam holding them together, but the bottom is connected so it still requires the shirt to be layed flat on top of a platen for printing. Still 2 layers of shirt to print over.

Yeah, what are we missing? Sewn at the hem is different than your diagram where the entire print area can be laid flat.

On this 4 color job, wouldn't it mean you would need 12 screens instead of 8?

Rodney · December 2nd, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by splathead


	Yeah, what are we missing? Sewn at the hem is different than your diagram where the entire print area can be laid flat. On this 4 color job, wouldn't it mean you would need 12 screens instead of 8?

I think the PXP can remove the stitching at the hem to get the garment to lay flat like in the mockup above. They also restitch the whole t-shirt afterwards.

That's how they described it to me.

Why would it need 12 screens?