Making your own T-shirts

From LibertyActivism

Contents 1 Making your Own T-Shirts 1.1 Cafe Press et al. 1.2 Iron On Transfers[4] 1.3 Sharpie Shirts 1.4 Stencils 1.5 Silkscreening

Making your Own T-Shirts

As much as Murray Bookchin[1] hated the fact that socio political messages tend to be broken down to sound bytes and slogans, it is undeniable that our current culture is most receptive to these blips of information. That, coupled with the fact that your average person doesn't sport enough space on their chest for a 200 page essay, forces us to condense our thoughts when creating T-shirts. This isn't necessarily bad. T-shirts can start a dialog between people. A tiny statement such as "Property is Theft"[2] or "Legalize Freedom" can generate hours of intelligent discussion between people. This article will cover a few different methods used to make your own T-shirt.

Cafe Press et al.

I have used Cafe Press[3] in the past to make T-shirts. The advantage is the shirts have lasted a decent amount of time and all you have to do is upload your graphic to them. The disadvantage is the price, shipping wastefulness and the fact that you don't get the pride associated with doing it yourself. Despite this, with Cafe Press you get the added benefit of having your shirt exposed to others on the web site. This option may make the most sense if you are making a lot of T-shirts. There are other options, but I haven't used them before. If you have input on these sites please edit this page.

Iron On Transfers[4]

There are several products available that allow you to print out your design and iron it on a T-shirt. Assuming you utilize the full 8.5"x11", or you trim the excess off this is a good solution. In general, follow the directions on the product. More specifically if you trim the edges of a design, try to eliminate corners and make it more rounded. This tends to keep the design from peeling off. Also, be careful how you was these shirts as they are somewhat delicate.

Sharpie Shirts

My prefered method of creating T-shirts is with a sharpie marker. You can use any T-shirt you like just make sure you wash it initially to get the oils off. Simply trace your design onto the shirt using a sharpie. You can print your design onto a piece of paper and use a lightbox to trace it, or you can use an overhead or opaque projector in a darkened room. I purchased an opaque projector at a thrift store for five dollars, and it has served me well. It projects a light image of whatver you put it on. Mine looks like it was designed to project images from polariod pictures. Using an opaque projector you can create your design by hand on paper and then project it onto the shirt to trace. The most difficult part of this process is filling in the black spaces and being careful to keep the shirt stretched so you get clean lines. These shirts have a VERY homemade look to them and can be great conversation starters. Keep the design simple and you should be able to make your point.

Stencils

This method seems to produce conistent, easily reproducible, decent quality T-shirts. It's a little time consuming to creat the stencil, but once you have it you can make tons of shirts with it. This is a serious advantage over sharpie shirts. Here's the method I'm developing:

1. Print out you stencil on transparancy film. If you're looking for stencils check the propaganda section as I plan to put all my stencils up there.
   

   

   Cutting a Stencil
2. Use a #11 X-acto blade to cut your stencil. Cut on dense cardboard (like from a cereal box) with a steady pressure always pulling towards yourself. Don't lift the knife out of the cut until the shape is removed. Rotate the stencil, not your hand. Expect to spend a few hours cutting out your stencil.
3. Wash the shirt.
4. Get yourself a sponge roller, some fabric paint and repositionable adhesive[5].
5. Spray the back of your stencil with repositionable adhesive. Lay the shirt on something flat and put the stencil on it. Push it down so there are no air bubbles or raised portions.
6. Put some paint on your roller and roll it in the tray till you get a light even coat. You may want to roll it on some paper to remove excess paint.
7. Roll over your stencil a few times in multiple directions. Go slowly to try to get a nice even coat.
8. Carefully peel the stencil off and let the shirt dry six to seven hours
9. Iron the shirt the to set the paint and don't wash it for 72 hours. When you do wash it, wash it inside out.

Front of Shirt

Back of Shirt

Silkscreening

Silkscreening is the best way to make professional looking fully customizable shirts. There are kits on the market that have almost all you will need to get started, they cost 100-200USD and can be found at any art-supply store or online. Once you're set up you can make countless shirts quickly, all you'll need are shirts and paint.

Instructions and photos to come.