The Ink Kitchen

We appear to have our hack fixed. Sorry we were gonzo. I wish we could go find the hackers and have a blanket party, but… Anyhow, we’ll be back at posting tomorrow.

Despite using our Magic 8 balls to figure it out, we have not yet determined how to get rid of a hack of our site that happened at the end of last week.  It appears to involve Word Press plug-ins . We are on it and have a backlog of articles to post when we…

Thousands of shirts sit in New England warehouses. Seattle’s Kearse catches a ridiculous pass that should have fallen to the ground. Printers in New England groan, remembering the insane catch (and last of very few catches he ever made) by David Tyree in 2008 which robbed the Patriots of the Super Bowl that year and…

Nine recent questions I have received whether on forums, calls, or at shows: Q: What is the standard over/under on good shirts? A: You are free to make up whatever you want, but we usually tell people 1.5% per location is the industry standard. 300 shirts printed two sides on customer supplied goods means 9 shirts…

We attended the Alphabroder Northeast Expo today and yesterday. It was highly attended, really like a trade show with not just garments but embroidery machine companies, transfers and all kinds of things. econscious Bag Edge, Big Accessories had a new item, I think it was called a beverage sling. One can in a koozie on…

TechCrunch reported on Teespring’s latest acquisition of London-based Fabrily.  The acquisition allows the company, which is already growing at a staggering rate, to offer it’s services globally. PS: In case you didn’t know it, Teespring was established in 2011 (!)

Resident “Know-It-All” Tom Davenport is featured in the Winter ’15 SGIA Journal: Garment Edition The article takes an in-depth look at the proper pairing of substrate and print method, an all-too-often ignored aspect of garment decoration. If you are an SGIA member and received the Journal, we think the read will be well worth your time.  If…

What do you do with all those mis-prints and/or defects?  Most shops just turn them into test prints and then into rags, right?  What’s the matter with that?… As a contract decorator we have a responsibility to our customers to handle their product in a professional and accountable manner whether it’s before, during, or post production.…

To “discharge” print a shirt is to use “discharge” ink and get the dye in the shirt to be neutralized. You add a catalyst to a specific type of ink and in the presence of heat and water the dye basically goes away. Only cotton discharges and not all cotton dyes discharge. We test shirts…

There is an interesting article in the New York Times on the post tragedy selling of things, particularly t-shirts In particular. They focus on the terrorist killings of the newspaper staff in Paris and all the shirts and other items for sale related to that. Folks want to express themselves on an issue, and that statement might…