Hi Mell,
I can outline a few details about your specific order to maybe help you understand (as well as others) how this happend.
When we confirmed your t-shirt order it was for an all over print without any physical samples to go by. In emails prior to the confimed order you had sent pictures of a print that you wanted done. It was determained that it was an all over print and needed to be done by rotary.
I asked for high resolution artwork in the beginning stages (before deposit and sampling stage). After some time went by with no communication, you had decided to move forward with the order and wanted to start the sampling stage. We confirmed order, you made the deposit and we started fabric.
I then asked again for the high resolution artwork so screens can be prepared and you were unsure how to convert your artwork as you had actually "hand stamped" the shirts. I then asked for the physical shirt to see if we can match the print on the sample.
After receiving the sample, we determained we would use a method that would give you the look and feel similar to yours but our techs noted that on your original sample it was tubular whereas the print method we were going to use was not going to work on tubular tees. Not to mention, tubular fabric was never mentioned before hand and now all fabric has been prepared.
This is where we are in the process and as discussed Mell, we are committed to working with you on this and will try to do what we can do give you a favorable outcome. Most of our customers are small, start up companies with a limited budget so we definitely understand your situation.
It is costly to a factory to have specs changed in mid production. I can't say enough how important it is to confirm all specs with us first, especially artwork.
As far as tubular shirts being more expensive:
We custom knit fabric per order, so when we receive an order for 250 t-shirts that is why we like to confirm measurements, sizes, quantaties. Then we know how much to knit so we reduce wastage.
The more fabric we knit at one time reduces costs because a large batch going through the machines once will have that cost divided my amount of fabric. Now, for tubular each size has to be knitted individually. Break that down into each size for a quantatity of 250 and your price goes up.
While I appreciate and don't mind at all the questons about any issues that may come up in production from any customers, I do encourage customers to contact me privately to handle. You will find that I am easy to work with and very understanding and will help you along with the process.

And we can certainly be reached by phone, but you will find that emails work better in some cases due to the fact that we need to keep a record of specs or changes to specs so we can access them easily.