Shirt making workshop

In addition to custom printing all of the volunteer and attendee shirts for the Maker Alliance camp event, I also brought my whole kit with me to give a workshop opportunity for all attendees to have a hand in making their own shirts. The 90-minute workshop started with talk + slideshow covering the digital design aspects of preparing screens. Then, with a little bit of Martha Stewart scheduling tactics, was able to provide hands on experience covering:

  • How to add emulsion to your screens
  • How to use UV light to transfer your design onto them
  • How to register/align the screens onto the 4-colour press
  • Applying the inks and how to screen press through
  • Aligning your shirt on the platen and timings for heat
  • Making your own shirt

The workshop was a whirlwind of fun – including a ‘best way is to learn by doing’ moment that one of the screens got UV exposed backwards (the white base layer) that only got caught as we were about to put the screens on the press. Turning lemons into lemonade and crowdsourcing the solution, the most limited edition and sought after shirt ended up being one where the back contained Makers Gonna Make Mistakes and the front with the corrected designs and colours.

The workshop was scheduled early in the 4-day event, and throughout the rest of the time the equipment was available with support of myself and some other now experienced shirt making volunteers to guide makers of all ages and skill levels to print as many shirts as we had stock for.

This was an absolute joy to put on. Big thanks to the Maker Alliance for hosting, and I’m looking forward to bringing more shirt related workshop adventures back next year!

The difference between watching a process happen on YouTube versus being able to try it for yourself.

    • One of the designs from camp applied to black cardstock made for a really nice album cover effect

    Does this project catch your eye?

    Please share a few words
    to tell us why!

    Are you captivated by this project? We’d love to hear from you! Whether you’re envisioning something similar for yourself, found inspiration as a fellow maker, or have ideas to enhance future creations, connecting with those who appreciate Idealien Studios’ work fuels our passion.

    Name(Required)

    Similar Posts

    • | |

      Hex-A-Deck

      The deck consultant from the nearest (orange) big box store sai “Everything you are thinking of is structurally sound, but it flies in the face of hundreds of years of engineering principles.”

      With Jim Carrey’s, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance” echoing in my head, I began an ambitious hex-a-deck building adventure.

    • Personalized mugs

      How long do you spend in an average year perusing the aisles of greeting cards looking for just the right one for a friend or family members? Imagine how much more they would appreciate receiving a mug that you designed the graphic and message just for them instead?

    • Rolling into new mediums

      Iron on t-shirt transfers have an icky weight to wearing them and don’t hold up over time. I’ve added screen printing to the repertoire that Idealien Studios can now produce colourful projects on cotton and other fabrics.

    • | | | |

      DND GM screens to die for

      The use case of wooden free-standing screens for a tabletop RPG may be niche, but this project was an exciting opportunity to push my tools/skills. The grain-matching inlays, backfilling routed lines with epoxy and blending laser etchings over top from it are ones I’m excited to use on more projects in the future.

    • Improv team shirts

      This set of shirts went from idea to execution in one incredibly fun week. Once the team came up with their punderful name, we sketched out some concepts that I polished up into a final design to play on the idea of lighting and a lightbulb shaped BBQ.

    • Making maker event shirts

      Collaborating with other makers on projects that I also get to participate in is always an exciting opportunity. It certainly didn’t hurt to get a nostalgia fix from the 80’s theme and finding UV-reactive primary printer colours that popped on the black shirts.