Why use plywood? I've done a lot of t-shirt dyeing; summer camp & stuff, y'know. Just treat it like a really simple tie-dye with those good-quality fiber-reactive dyes.

Soak the whole shirt in the soda ash pre-treat solution, then wrap the area that you don't want dyed with a plastic bag, and seal it up with rubber bands. Apply dye, bag it, and let it sit for however long it takes the dye chemicals to bond (some hours; overnight is good, when practical). Then, unbag, rinse like hell, then wash (preferably with an after-dye detergent).

These procedures & materials work VERY well, and the colors stay vivid permanently (on natural fibers, especially cotton).

Two discoveries today at the craft store:

1) Stretchable fabric-transfer decals, on inkjet printer paper
2) Fabric transfers for dark fabric, also on inkjet paper

I picked up a sample pack of each, with 5 sheets per. Will experiment; watch this space...

awesome. that'll be even easier.... we'll get sizes from folks tonight, and can hit target before sat, and iron thos up while we panick abotu not being finished withteh spoon sat.

Early results! Check it out.

NOTE: when using this transfer paper, you absolutely need to read & follow the instructions carefully. That said, though, it works! Pretty much any design you can print onto 8.5"x11" paper can be successfully transferred onto a shirt, and it doesn't even need to be 100% cotton. (My test shirt is, though.)

Twin Cities Maker photostream

WHOOT!

i'm in for an XL. do we want black? red? navy?

should the white background match the shirt color?

Nicely done.

I imagine that's possible, but tricky to get right. Hmm. There'd have to be some samples printed, like paint chips; they'd probably need to be ironed & heat-set, too. (Not necessarily onto the target shirt, though.) Then, choose the sample that matches best & run with that.

Dude, until I'm rich again, it's BYOS. Choose a shirt (preferably clean, heh) and get it to me before Make Day. I'll tag it & get it back to you. I've even got one more of the identical draft design already printed on the decal paper, if you like it as is, but since these are one-offs, there's some flexibility.

i was thinking byos, but might be good if we all bought the same colour.

for the ply because it's a *easy* way to get the same shaped resist over and over.

tie die is a shaped resist technique, and a rather gross application of it.

capping can be done *very* accurately, but usually through stitching or with a backer like a pebble, bean or bead.