Nuchalawoyya Red and White

For my Nuchalawoyya sweaters I started off with American Apparel  sweaters.  I like them because they are light weight and soft.   I know in Alaska a lot of people want heavier sweaters in the winter,   but I think the sweaters are small enough to throw on under a jacket.

Before printing sweaters I have to make sure there's a lot of tact layed down.  When there isn't enough tact the sweater can lift off of the surface,  which can really mess up a print.

I lined the sweater up where I wanted it,  and made sure to press down,  so that the sweater would stick to the surface.

I printed the Nuchalawoyya and stars layer first. I chose to print this layer with white ink to make sure that it stood out from the black sweater.

I didn't like my first red color so I had to clear the screen out and start over.  The color wasn't bad it just was a little too dark.  I mixed in a little bit of yellow,  as suggested by Gary,  to brighten my red up a little bit. 

The red was still a little dark so I had to flash it.   This means that I put it under a heat source to dry the ink,  so I could print on it again.   I wanted the red to be bright,  but no so bright that it competes with the stars and Nuchalawoyya layer.  

After finishing the Nuchalawoyya sweater I put it in a rotating oven.  I would show this but this blog only allows me to post a few pictures per post.   The oven dries the ink and cooks it into the shirt.

After printing several shirts I noticed the white ink was starting to gunk up.   The finish line was really close with just 7 sweaters left to print.   Oden the owner of Nomadic Stars,  where I printed these shirts suggested that I take the white ink out and thin it out,  then reapply it to the screen.   Because the printing process was taking a long time and I still had another design to print,  my initial tendency was to just power through the gunky ink and get it done.  

However I remember what happened in my last print when I tried to just go through some gunky ink,  and how it messed up my last couple of prints.  So I did what was suggested.   It may have slowed me down by half an hour,   but it payed off.    

The final result is shown below.