I wanna make my own T shirts

kacy75

Does anyone know what equipment I would need in order to add logo and writing to tshirts, or embrodiere logos.
Many thanks
Kacy

scruffpot

I put transfers on to tee shirts you would need transfer paper and a press we have an industral tee shirt press, i dont know if thats what you want or the only other way is to iron on transfer paper what you can get from pc world then print your images on to that as for sewing i cant do that.

SamMoffatt28

Great thread! I have always wanted to do this too! I hear that hobbycraft have some good crafty items suitable for the job. If only I knew where to get cheap plain t-shirts?

tawnyowls

Don't forget you'll probably need a ballpoint needle for sewing - i.e. one suitable for jersey fabrics.

kacy75

I want to mainly sew on logo (eg the type of thing you get on kids school uniforms) do I need specialist equipment. I want to make these tshirts for a company, so not a huge amount is needed but hoping it will be cheaper then going to a company and getting it done for me

Softstuff

kacy75 wrote:

I want to mainly sew on logo (eg the type of thing you get on kids school uniforms) do I need specialist equipment. I want to make these tshirts for a company, so not a huge amount is needed but hoping it will be cheaper then going to a company and getting it done for me

unfortunately yes you would need specialist equipment, at the very least a computerised sewing machine that could embroider the logo. Looked into this myself for doing my shop clothing. Tried the iron on stuff too at home, that was fine immediately but had to be thrown away after 1 wash. Also even tried cross stitching the logo on waste canvas onto polo shirts... that didn't go well in the wash either. Really any DIY in this instance is a false economy, better to find a local company who'll do a short run for you cheaply, they'll simply last years.

kittiwoz

Depends on the run size really. You could embroider them by hand if you have the skill to do so. You would need embroidery thread, an embroidery needle and a way of stiffening the area to be embroidered. You could do that using a stiff patch on the reverse or I think you can buy stuff to spray on. That would be very time consuming though. Otherwise you would need a programmable sewing machine as Softstuff says and they are very expensive. It would be cheaper to employ a professional company who would charge you an initial set-up cost based on the design size plus a unit cost and who will be able to provide the tee-shirts cheaply due to bulk savings.

If your run is small and you find that the initial set-up cost makes embroidery too expensive then you might consider CAD cut printing (where pieces of machine cut coloured vinyl are heat sealed onto the garment) or flock transfer which is a similar process using felt. Both these techniques are charged per unit and the price is based on the design area. They are suitable for simple designs using only a few colours such as logos.