Pink Bee Tees
Monday, October 20, 2008
This is the new "Pink Bee Tee" available in very limited quantities from the Bee Docs Etsy Shop.
My latest hobby has been experimenting with unique ways to hand print t-shirts. The Pink Bee shirt starts with a black Edun-Live shirt, grown and sewn in Africa. Check out this video to learn the great story behind how these shirts are made.
Next, I had a large rubber stamp custom made with our new bee logo. I used the stamp to print color remover on the shirt which, like bleach, removes the black color from the areas it is stamped. On the sleeve, I used a small silk screen to apply the color remover to spell "BEEDOCS".
Finally, I garment dyed the entire shirt pink to stain the bleached out areas pink. The result is a cool distressed vintage look where each shirt is unique. They are also very soft since they are made with dye instead of printed ink. I only made 9 of these shirts and they are only in women's sizes so get 'em while you can.
Shirt Prototype
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I've been having fun playing around with shirt designs lately. My family and I have been experimenting with different textile paints, stencils, silk screens, gocco, and even the sewing machine. I'd like to someday sell shirts on the website a la Panic, but with a distinctly handmade/ artisan perspective.
The above shirt (prototype) was inspired by the trend of recycling older materials into new items. For example, Re-Sails bags (made for sail cloth) and these Rice & Feed Laundry Bags. We also recently bought some hand printed shirts for the kids from Potato Playground which I totally dig and have been inspired by.
To print this shirt, I cut a large version of the new logo from freezer paper used an x-acto knife to make a stencil. Then I ironed the freezer paper stencil to the shirt and masked it to the seams of the shirt. Finally, I printed the ink using a sea sponge to give it an organic and worn looking texture.
By the way, the shirt is from Edun Live. Check out their intro video.
Let me know what you think!