My New Fashion Designer Blog

I like making t-shirts (i.e., having professionals screenprint them), but it would be fun making some one-offs, too.  And learning how to do screen printing is kinda a project.

Then somebody linked to Inkodye, and it seemed almost perfect.  The process is simple: You apply the ink to the t-shirt and mask off the bits you don’t want to have ink on.  Then you put the shirt in the sun for 20 minutes, and wash off the unexposed ink.

I got the supplies yesterday, and, of course, I didn’t have any transparencies to print anything on today.  And there’s apparently no sun here for the next week, so I used gaffa tape instead of using a transparency.  And I used a black t-shirt.  All the instructions use a white fabric, but I want to see what it looks like on a black t-shirt.

A Roll-On Thingie

That means that the design is perhaps, er, a bit simplistic.  But it’s only a trial run! Er.  It kinda looks like a Norwegian flag from that angle.  But it’s not.

The ink smells a bit of ammonia, but it’s not too bad.

Hanging out on the balcony, developing.  Gaffa saves everything.

Ok, it’s not that sunny.  Better leave it out for 40 minutes.

Time passes.

Hm.  The ink isn’t looking any bluer on the black shirt.  Perhaps I should test on a white shirt?

Even simpler design.

Gaffa it up on the balcony.

The ants are my friends.  They’re blowing in the wind.

Hm…  not looking all that blue on the white t-shirt, either.

The snacks I’m eating are tasty kinda fishy.

So that’s the result on the black shirt.  A kinda dirty splotch.

Oh.  Perhaps I should have read the ninth FAQ:

“Because it is a dye, it does not coat the fabrics like a paint would. It actually become part of the fiber, and therefore will not add color to a black or dark-colored material.”

But  the white shirt looks nice. A very deep, rich blue.

Oh, well.  I’ll just have to learn how to do screen printing.