Stamp Printing on T-Shirt with Vinyl Stencil

Today I tried doing something for fun: an experiment. I've been wanting to try vinyl stencil for T-Shirt. So there I went, with my Big 4 design, and cut a piece of permanent vinyl with it. I did leave some margin around the design on the vinyl. Posting some pics of progression here.

There are a few lessons learned here.

Wash the fabric before starting the project

Fabric less likely to shrink more after the first wash. Washing the fabric first helps make sure the design is going to look like what it's supposed to be after wash.

When not to do this

Looking back, this is not a great project to do with stamp printing. I used foam stamp / brush right on stencil. It's hard when there are so many small details. If the images are larger, this might be a good candidate, but if I could do it again I'd opt for screen printing.

One of the most difficult things is the transfer of the vinyl stencil to the fabric. The permanent vinyl will always adhere better to the transfer paper than the fabric. This is not the worst problem. The worst is that with fine lines, and because the permanent vinyl adheres directly to the fabric instead of through a screen, some pulling of the fabric lint might happen when stencil is removed, causing the design lines not to look sharp anymore.

Use permanent vinyl to remove the lint before putting the stencil down

This makes sure no lint or future lint would part from the fabric when stencil is being pulled up. Better now than later.

When to remove the stencil vinyl?

I removed it not waiting until the ink dries. I don't think this is needed for screen printing. I don't think this is also needed here.

The ink

I used Speedball Flex screen printing ink. I like that this ink is opaque and washes easily with water and soap. After stencil removal I used hair dryer on lowest heat setting to help it dry a little bit. Then wait for half an hour before heat pressing it at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for a minute, with a sheet of parchment paper on top of the design.

How this would be screen printed instead

I'd use HTV (Siser Easyweed as an example) and heat press it to a screen on a screen printing frame. This will be a permanent design, but it's likely better for design this fine.