# Dye Sub "Cut and Sew" Vapor Extreme Long Sleeves



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

The "cut and sews" are here! With a whole lotta help from SK Mfg. we are producing cut and sew Vapor Long Sleeves. Now we have a couple of samples to sell with and the response has been great. This fabric really is comfortable.

First client actually won their shirts as a prize in a fishing tournament. While the design doesn't really take advantage of the process, it's still pretty impressive to print an ice blue background with no banding. Really looks like we printed white using dye sub!










The second shirt here is a sample for us, and something that will hopefully lead to some work for the "Vitamin Sea Too" fishing team. The background of the shirt is taken straight from their boat wrap, I intentionally blurred it, so the sponsor logos would stand out.










We're using a rib-knit collar and we have noticed a little bunching around the collar. The Vapor material is very lightweight and that is part of it, we're also going to enlarge the collar pattern and use a little less "pull." Even on these where it seems to gather - the collar and neckline flatten nicely when worn.

We're able to produce these with no minimum order. These aren't the cheapest shirts ever produced but no other process can come close. Being able to print and create a garment with photo-quality printing is really amazing. I spend most of my time daydreaming about what other styles could be done using this process.

I'd love to hear from anyone else producing "cut and sew" and maybe see some photos of what you've been up to. The learning curve for clients who don't understand the possibilities will be easier the more examples we have. Thanks to everyone.


----------



## GAW (Jan 11, 2010)

Tony dumb question.....What do you mean by "cut and sew"?

Are you piecing these shirts together?

(I know I should know this lol)


----------



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

Yeah, so "cut and sew" literally means I cut the pieces of the shirt out. The sleeves, the front and back body, the collar and then sew them into a shirt. We print an oversized dye sub transfer and transfer it to a large piece of Vapor fabric (60" bolt of fabric.) Our artwork is setup to be the pattern, so you just cut them out of the printed fabric. On a traditional fabric, you would use a paper pattern to get the size and shape right.

Since i'm printing the pattern, I create a version of the art for every shirt size. This also allows me to produce larger sizes. Vapor is only made up to 3X, I can make it up to 5X.

When doing an all-over print you could use the same art/transfer for multiple sizes but that wouldn't work for cut and sew without a pattern.


----------



## GAW (Jan 11, 2010)

That's what I thought you where meaning. Thanks for clearing that up.

They look great man. You are doing some great things with Dye Sub


----------



## cbsuperduty (Mar 5, 2007)

Looks great! I still say that some short sleeve button up shirts would get you some business. Alot of the motorsports guys around here are going to them.


----------



## GAW (Jan 11, 2010)

I could see that being a great "cut and sew" idea.......


----------



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

I'm willing to try. With a patient and open-minded client, anything is possible!


----------



## JaeAmera (Dec 25, 2006)

Looks great Tony!

Jae


----------



## jmdesigns (Feb 9, 2007)

Tony,
Do you get the actual fabric from Vapor or somewhere else? How much per yard? Thanks
Mary Ellen


----------



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

We bought it through Conde at "http://www.dyetrans.com/detail?item_no=F0003 "


----------



## GLC (Jun 3, 2007)

Hey Tony,

Great Stuff - INSPIRATIONAL!! 

Keep it up this is really helping my confidence in this area!

You the man

Do CONDE supply you with the patterns or do you measure up your client yourself or just use tees for a guidance?
--
Eze


----------



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

Eze, you're too kind. I got the short sleeve templates from Jason at SK Mfg. and then modified them to long sleeve using prefab Vapor shirts for reference. Sewing our first 5X this week, worried about the collar, will post pics when we're done. Thanks to everyone for making this forum what it is!


----------



## JaeAmera (Dec 25, 2006)

Eze-

You can also use standard shirt templates if you have access to a grand-format scanner (we have a 50")

We bought templates from the fabric store, traced them on to standard poster paper, scanned them in, tada....digital templates.

Simply, decorate in your graphics program, print, cut & sew.

We were producing some really wild stuff but our semtress started having bouts with arthritis and couldn't keep up with demand. Not to mention our contract work increased so our cut & sew stuff kinda went on the back burner for the time being.

Jae'


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Jae has a good tip for getting patterns digitally. Just some advice to watch for from experience. Places like Kinko's have large scale scanners. If the scanner is behind the counter (not self serve) they will not scan a pattern as they actually copyrighted. Another option we used before we hired a seamstress who also created patterns was to go on the web and download patterns. This takes a few steps as you first have to download the pieces which are designed not to be able to be copied and put them all together in a program like AI or Corel. Once together you can then trace all the different sizes. Takes a bit of work but you do get correctly fitted patterns. The key to cut and sew is having PROFESSIONAL seamstresses. If they do not have professional grade equipment and experience with poly stretch fabric you will produce items that may look good to an untrained eye but will get you killed in the real market.


----------



## skdave (Apr 11, 2008)

Some of or latest work. What do you all think?


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

To me there is nothing cooler than a full blown custom hoodie. Unfortunately we have not been able to really find a market for them. I called a couple of our "competitiors" and they had the same isues we have - $$$$. These things are expensive to make in time and material. Just the design time for a custom hoodie is 50-75% more than a jersey. Add to that the cost of the fabric and the amount of fabric required just makes these things expensive. The other issue we never really resolved was the material gets really matted in pressing and we were having to wash them before shipping. My thought was if someone was paying close to $100 for a hoodie they expected something special out of the box. The good thing is becuase of this there are not many companies to compete with. 

We do not even show them on our web site anymore in fear of a good customer wanting a single hoodie. The companies I know that do them offer them at $80 - 90 ea with no qty discounts. We just could not find teams that were willing to order 20+. Follows is a sample of one we did a while back.


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Riderz Ready said:


> To me there is nothing cooler than a full blown custom hoodie. Unfortunately we have not been able to really find a market for them. I called a couple of our "competitiors" and they had the same isues we have - $$$$. These things are expensive to make in time and material. Just the design time for a custom hoodie is 50-75% more than a jersey. Add to that the cost of the fabric and the amount of fabric required just makes these things expensive. The other issue we never really resolved was the material gets really matted in pressing and we were having to wash them before shipping. My thought was if someone was paying close to $100 for a hoodie they expected something special out of the box. The good thing is becuase of this there are not many companies to compete with.
> 
> We do not even show them on our web site anymore in fear of a good customer wanting a single hoodie. The companies I know that do them offer them at $80 - 90 ea with no qty discounts. We just could not find teams that were willing to order 20+. Follows is a sample of one we did a while back.


A++ on that hoodie design!


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

mgparrish said:


> A++ on that hoodie design!


Thanks - All yours for $90 - lol!


----------



## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Riderz Ready said:


> Thanks - All yours for $90 - lol!


What might be cool, and perhaps marketable in decent volumes to some small businesses and organizations is to do a tie dye look (all over) with a specialty logo or design on the shirt front.

If you watch the pre-print market those Grateful Dead tie dyes from Liquid Blue are awesome. Should only need to make a basic T for those.

Just a thought.


----------



## playera (Aug 13, 2010)

Riderz Ready said:


> Thanks - All yours for $90 - lol!


Ill take it! haha jk looks good man. Which printer are you using for sublimation? Epson? Thanks


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

playera said:


> Ill take it! haha jk looks good man. Which printer are you using for sublimation? Epson? Thanks


We have an Epson 9800 which that was done on and a Mutoh RJ 900. Mutoh is fast and all but is really poorly designed in its ink and paper handling compared to the Epson. There are only two things that really matter when it comes to all this - ink and profile. We do most of our production printing on the Mutoh and still use the 9800 for orders that were originally done on it so we can match the colors. At the end of the year we will most likely retire the Epson. I get teary eyed thinking about it.


----------



## FatboyGraphics (Sep 20, 2009)

there are companies selling these hoodies for $50-60 all day to softball teams.

I may be looking for a new company to use for my full sub production....8-10 weeks is kind of long to wait for full sub jerseys.


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

FatboyGraphics said:


> there are companies selling these hoodies for $50-60 all day to softball teams.
> 
> I may be looking for a new company to use for my full sub production....8-10 weeks is kind of long to wait for full sub jerseys.


Anytime someone gives you 8-10 weeks they are in many case not doing the work themselves. In softball most of the biggest softball apparel companies do not do their own dye sub work. If you have a contact that will will do full dye sub hoodies for $50 PM me the contact as we would start offereing and subbing them out. 

Softball is one of those markets where you start with a $35 jersey and all of a sudden it ends up being $45 after all the add-on charges. Next year we will do what we did in the BMX market to the softball market and turn it upside down.


----------



## FatboyGraphics (Sep 20, 2009)

Riderz Ready said:


> Softball is one of those markets where you start with a $35 jersey and all of a sudden it ends up being $45 after all the add-on charges. Next year we will do what we did in the BMX market to the softball market and turn it upside down.


That is true to the white/grey based "semi subs". But not on full subs, at least not with my business.


----------

