Where you can find us this weekend

This sunday we’ll make our first appearance at the Kenton Street Fair in North Portland. I heard good things about this fair last year even though I think they withstood a minor deluge, but that was pretty much par for the course for last year. Come by and see us from 11-7pm on sunday May 22nd. If you aren’t familiar with Kenton just look for this guy

We’ve also printed some “Johnny Cash Died For Your Sins” shirts in new colors like this

Also I’d like to say hi to Anna who could possibly be my only reader on this blog, hi Anna!

And Another Fair Season Begins

The clouds are clearing (somewhat) and the sun is once again coming out (kinda) here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and another fair season begins. Here’s where we will be at this weekend.

Northwest Shirts is proud to not only be a vendor but a co-founder of this great new market in Vancouver Washington. This friday (May 13th) will be the first one of these to take place but all systems are go for a tremendous event. We’ve got locally grown produce, a food court, an accoustic music stage and local arts and crafts. Please join us this friday and every second friday of the month from May-Oct 4-8pm at 2315 Main st Vancouver WA. 98660

On saturday we’ll be making our 4th appearance at the St. Johns Bizarre in North Portland. This is a really great fair and always signals and gets the beginning of the season off to a good start. You won’t want to miss this one. Please come by and see us at either location, we’ll have our whole inventory in stock and on site so you can get your NW Shirts needs met. email us if you need more info: nwshirts@gmail.com

What’s going on with you lately?

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve been here but it seems like it gets harder and harder to keep up with social media. I’ve got Facebook, Etsy, WordPress and my home page to keep up with as the Facebook and homepage sites for the Urban Growers Market too. I’m a slave to the box it seems like. Anyway here’s a shot of me printing in Northwest Shirts world production headquarters in my lovely Rose Village garage. There’s a couple of different things going on here in this shot, one I’m listening to Ladytown, and it’s haunting and beautiful. Love the Arslanian’s, real salt of the Earth folk there. Another thing that’s happening is I’ve got this 90′s ponytail thing going on now. Yep I’ve been letting that hair go for a while and now I can pull it back in a nice tight little tail ala 1994, at which time I was probably reading “the Crow” comics and watching a lot of Seattle Supersonics games, remember them?

When I start looking like this guy you have my permission to hold me down and shave my head. I get to keep the rug though

The other thing that’s going in this shot is I’m printing up a bunch o’ Portland shirts for my upcoming street fairs

There’s this little gem, my take on the hundreds of different Portland bike tshirts you can find everywhere. We’ve got them in red too: http://northwestshirts.com/ptldBkMnsSS.html

This one’s been popular too, apparently there was some TV show about Portland? It comes in green too!
http://northwestshirts.com/wlcmToPtlndMnsSS.html

There’s this one too, and yes it’s true. It come’s in red too!
http://northwestshirts.com/overUnder.html

I’m anticipating these being pretty hot this summer, sorry stores you probably won’t get any of these till the end of the month. I’ve got a couple of big P-town fairs in the next few weeks and Im holding onto them.

What’s hot!

I can tell when something has been featured somewhere as they start selling faster than I can renew the listing on etsy, and this shirt is smoking hot right now. This design was something of a fluke as I think I was just playing around with the design and decided to do a double print ala Andy Warhol style and it seems to have hit a chord. I only use one screen for it so I’ll print the first design using water based ink and dry it and then I’ll manually place the second print so no two shirts are the same. If you like it you can get it here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/64206668/womens-3d-johnny-cash-tee

I’ve got it in a men’s style as well:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/59921833/mens-3d-johnny-cash-tee

The Che’ Adama design seems to have quite the following and is always a consistent seller. I was printing some shirts of it and decided to throw a couple of scarfs in the mix. These American Apparel scarfs are great, nice light and smooth jersey cotton they are perfect for screenprinting and are great for keeping your neck warm or accessorising any ensemble. Pick one up here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/72523115/commander-adama-sheer-cotton-scarf

We’ve got them in men’s and women’s tshirts too!
http://www.nwshirts.etsy.com

New Designs and 1000th Etsy Sale

Firstly we’re proud to announce that we made our 1000th etsy this week. We put our etsy page about 2 1/2 years ago and joined the ranks of the etsy sellers and have seen steady growth in sales in that time. It’s hard to figure sometimes what trends drive sales on etsy, they’re up and down but when they’re up, they’re up and when they’re down they’re really down. Live by the sword, die by the sword I guess. Thanks to Ann in Arkansas for picking up a Mustang fighter plane tshirt for men and a Hawthorne ave shirt for herself.

Secondly this shirt is hot, hot, hot right now and I have them in both men’s and women’s. At least by search query stats, my most searched for shirts after “the Northwest tshirt”. They’re not available on etsy  but you can get it on my homepage at: http://northwestshirts.com/spaceInvdrs.html

We also have a clutch of new shirts to talk about too.

Ziggy Schrutedust and the beets from mars

First one to talk about it is a tribute to two great pop-culture icons, Dwight Schrute and Ziggy Stardust. This was an idea that was rolling around my head for a while and I just couldn’t let it go, and it turned out awesome. This shirt is especially cool because it’s water based red ink over white discharge ink and is the first time I’ve printed on a discharge underbase and it turned out awesome. After the first wash the print itself can’t even be felt on the shirt, it’s super light and breatheable and is a great change from using plastisol on a black shirt which gives that bulletproof layer of ink that makes you sweat under it. I’ve got it in men’s and women’s and in several different colors. Get it on my homepage here: http://northwestshirts.com/ziggySchrutedust.html

Another new design is the “I Club Zombies” tee. People have been loving this one, the fascination with zombies cannot be killed by conventional means and keeps lumbering on, singular in purpose and unaware of it’s physical coil. So yeah, we got these in mens’ and women’s. Get them on our homepage here: http://northwestshirts.com/iClubZombies.html

New Homepage up

We’ve spent some time over at the homepage making it up mostly up to date with designs and also setting up e-commerce as well. You may now purchase from either our etsy store: http://www.nwshirts.etsy.com or from our homepage at: http://www.northwestshirts.com

Vancouver Vixen 3

Northwest Shirts is throwing another Vancouver Vixen long distance pusher race this year. This year will be a benefit for the Urban Growers Market a backyard and small farmers market taking place in downtown Vancouver starting this year. The course will be the same as the last two and it’s rain or shine so come prepared. We’ve got some great sponsors and podium is bragging rights only, all prizes are raffled at the end so everyone has a chance to win. If you are interested in registering you can do it here:

http://www.ncdsa.com/contest_registration.asp?ContestID=489

A few words about discharge ink

I’ve started using discharge ink to do white on black with a nice soft feel. Discharge ink is relatively new for screenprinting and can give nice full white coverage on a black or dark colored shirt without the heavy bulletproof feel of plastisol. Even water based super opague white ink will leave a heavy coat of ink and inconsistent coverage on blacks or darks.

Discharge ink does this by literally blocking the color spectrum from the garment. As far as I understand it, discharge ink doesn’t bleach the fibers which would weaken them and it doesn’t dye them like water based does, it literally bounces the color spectrum from the shirt. Sounds awesome huh? It has to be heat cured and a conveyor dryer won’t work.

So you have to print and lay them flat like you would with water based and then cure them by hand with a heat gun. Some conveyor dryers will work but not all have the options necessary for proper curing. Your home oven can work ok too.

You can tell the ink is cured as it will change color, just be careful you don’t scorch the shirt. This can be time consuming to do by hand so it’s recommended to use discharge in small print runs to keep the shirts from drying while you try to get them all cured. The best thing is after you give it an initial wash, it has a soft feel and you can’t even feel it on the garment.

Now the downside, discharge ink needs to mixed with an activating agent and the ink is gooey and sticky not to mention stinky. Once the agent and ink are mixed you only have about 4 hours of active time to print with. So you need to mix every time you print, there’s bad fumes too. You’ll need a well ventilated area to print in, it’s similar to vinyl ink that way. You can’t really claim eco-friendly if your using discharge, but if you need good white coverage on a dark without the heavy feel you can’t beat it.

Get the blackbeard scarf here on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/68813186/blackbeard-sheer-cotton-scarf

New Items on etsy

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve had some time to post on here. It’s been a really crazy summer and while I still have one big push left I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The store is back open again at 807 Grand Blvd, Vancouver WA, but I’ve been having a hard time keeping regular hours. I’ll be able to be in there more often towards the end of Sept. In the meantime here’s a few new items I’ve listed over at etsy:

Year of the Tiger Sheer Spring Scarf

I love this tiger print done with a two color blend from red to yellow to red. The nature of printing a blend means no two images are exactly the same. It’s printed on a big American Apparel 100% sheer jersey cotton scarf. Wear it almost anywhere or anytime:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/54702596/year-of-the-tiger-sheer-spring-scarf

Women’s Bamboo Kraken Shortsleeve Tee

The old standby Kraken print done with white water based ink on purple 70% bamboo, 30% cotton blend capsleeve tee. A shirt that is so light and comfortable you will forget that you have it on.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/54492075/womens-bamboo-kraken-capsleeve-tee

Men’s 3D Johnny Cash Tee

Not really 3D but has the same trippy Warhol-esque effect to it. Done with water based ink on a Gildan ultrasoft tee. Prints are hand placed so no two shirts are exactly the same.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/54490175/mens-3d-johnny-cash-tee?ref=v1_other_2

Skate over to the Flat Spot Tonight

We’ll be taking a rack of shirts and a small setup tonight down to the opening of the Flat Spot, JP’s new performance area inside of the new Rip City Skates location. It’s kinda turning into skateboard mecca over there. There’s the skateshop, the Subsonic shop in the basement, the incredible Gnarble bowl and now an all ages performance area for music inside the shop.

Definitely you need to come by and see the place if your in the Hollywood district of Portland tonight, come see Casey Morrow destroy the Gnarble!