How to Start Screen Printing Tea Towels?

Printed tea towels are the perfect gift. By combining a durable and fast-drying material with a clever design you can make them the perfect gift for everyday use.

If you want to get started screen printing a tea towel, please read on. These are the things you will need to know about how to start screen printing a design on a tea towel today.

The Design

Before you create screen-printed tea towels, it’s important to know what sort of image or text you’d like printed on the fabric.

This is also where you should determine if this is going to be a one-colour or multi-coloured design.

If you’d like to print more than one colour, you’ll need to determine how many colours the design requires and what limitations are set by the printer.

Create the right artwork

Once you’ve determined what sort of design you want printed on your custom t-shirts or tea towels, you must create the right artwork for your design.

A vector file is the best type of file to use for screen printing. Vector files are infinitely expandable and will not lose resolution when enlarged or reduced.

You can use Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign and draw out the image that you’d like printed into a digital format.

Or you can use our design team to do it for you.

Save them as a .eps for easy compatibility.

Choose your printing method

One of the main decisions that you’ll have to make when you’re designing your fabric is how many colours you’d like printed on the fabric.

This decision will have an impact on the amount of money you’ll need for this project as well as what sort of garment or fabric is required.

For example, if you are planning to print a three-colour design on your tea towel, you’ll need

Print Separations

If you’re planning to print your design in more than one colour, your printer must create separations of the colours in your design.

Your printer will use these colour separations to create screens that can be used to apply different colours of dye onto the fabric.

Your printer must create separations for each colour in your design because you can’t use one screen to print multiple colours.

Make the screens

Next, you’ll need to cut out or make your screens. You can make custom screens by stretching fabric tightly across a frame or by using premade screens like the one shown in the above image.

Add Screen Emulsion

Once the screen and made and cleaned of any dirt and grime it is time to coat the screen with your photo emulsion.

Add an even coat on both sides of the screen and then remove any excess coating.

Expose the screens

Once you’ve applied your photo emulsion onto the screen, it’s time to expose the screen to light.

You can do this by placing your fabric or garment under a vacuum table with the screen positioned above it. This will cause the dye to pass through open parts of the screen and appear on the fabric.

Wash away the emulsion

Once you’ve exposed all of your screens, it’s time to wash away the photo emulsion that was not exposed to light.

First, tape up all other areas on your screen except for those areas that were exposed. Then, use a spray bottle filled with water and soap as well as a squeegee to remove the emulsion from your screen.

Wash and dry

All that’s left to do is wash and dry your screen. We recommend air drying them outside in a warm sunny area.

Start printing

Now, it’s time to begin applying dye to your fabric. First, you’ll need to set up your screen on the printer and apply an even coating of photo emulsion (also known as photopolymer) onto the screen.

that’s it – you’re ready to start screen printing that gift for someone special by giving them a one-of-a-kind usable item for around the home.

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