Discharge is an ugly sounding process. Of course most discharge inks are kind of an ugly business. However, that is another story. The basics of discharge are that instead of covering up the darkness of a shirt with a couple of coats of ink, the discharge ink “neutralizes” the dye in the shirt. It isn’…
I would rather be writing about the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa and all that, than thinking about nylon. We always avoided printing on nylon, but eventually we somewhat embraced it. Nylon shrinks when you heat it and ink doesn’t really want to adhere to it and nobody technical gives you any consistent information, other…
We sent out inquiries about Corona Virus Covid-19 to the best and brightest in our industry, and most of the CEO’s in the decoration and garment and promotional products industry responded. In all we made inquiries to the management of almost 100 of the top companies. The best response was also the shortest response. One…
ThreadX 2020: Inspiring, Visionary, and Learning a Few Things The 2020 THREADX conference was the third annual. This year was sold out and it was an amazing opportunity to hear not only the best and brightest folks in our garment industry, but also have incredible folks from outside the industry. Everyone I spoke with had…
There are a few basic principles involved in the process of drying screens after they have been coated. You can make a “drying closet” out of very simple materials. Lack of sophisticated materials is not a problem when drying screens, but violation of certain principles IS a problem. I have been in beginner’s shops and…
We received a panic inquiry from a supplier that we work closely with. They had a customer who claimed that they could not get their prints to cure on a canvas bag. We field many questions for our vendors, since printers love to blame the substrate for printing problems, so our vendors use us to…
Bayside is the pre-eminent maker of USA made and union made apparel in the country. I have visited their facilities over the past couple years. They are vertically integrated, taking cotton and other raw materials and turning them through all the steps to a finished garment. They have come a long way from their start…
This post isn’t going to have illustration. There are many many possible illustrations for this post, but there is no reason to hurt anyone’s feelings. Do you want a bad looking t-shirt ? Here are a few pointers: 1. Just design whatever you want and don’t think about what kind of shirt it is going…
Alphabroder has acquired Golden State Activewear it was announced today. Some key Golden State employees will be staying on and insuring no interruption of service to their existing customers. There was no initial word on if and when the Golden State warenhouse might close down. Owners Scott and Laurie Prestine have operated Golden State for…
Northeastern researcher Xue Lin has invented a t-shirt that won’t make you invisible to humans, but it can confuse a video surveillance system, basically rendering you invisible to the system. The images on the shirt basically confuse and overwhelm the surveillance system and it can’t “see” you. The bright crazy image on the shirt is…
