angry monkey

Dave's band, humphry clinker, is in dire need of their very own humphry clinker themed t-shirts. Well . . . maybe not dire need, but how could I shirk my duties as the band's only groupie? What kind of lame groupie doesn't have at least one homemade t-shirt to express her innermost feelings about the band to the world???

World, I present to you: the very first ANGRY MONKEY HUMPHRY CLINKER SHIRT!!!!!

I have no idea what this shirt says about my innermost feelings, but he sure is one cute, ticked-off, little monkey.

The Process
I like the freezer paper method, but I wanted something reusable (you never know when humphry clinker will get a second groupie). First, I experimented with the cheap 'screen print' method.

I secured the screen fabric (I used Whisper Weft, which I noticed is discontinued) into an embroidery hoop and outlined the image in pencil, and then blocked out the outline with Mod Podge. After drying, I held the screen on the fabric I wanted to print, and painted through the image on the screen onto the fabric.

Mod Podge worked well for outlining the image. It stood up to rinsing after each print.



See the test monkeys here. No monkeys were harmed in the making of this t-shirt. . .








. . .although some came out more surly than others. . .

The monkey on the left is made with Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow, while the monkey on the right is made with Jacquard Textile.

I liked how the monkeys came out slightly textured, but I wanted something sharper for the lettering. Mod Podge over cut-out cardboard stencils (to make them reusable) did the trick. Blogger says I have too many pictures in this post, so check out my stencil experiment here, here, and here.