Everything in the shop is made to order, which means it was made once, for you, and it should stay in good shape for a long time. Here is how to look after each kind of thing we make, straight from the bench.
The short version
- Heat is the enemy of almost everything we make. Washing cold, drying low, and keeping pieces out of a hot car will do more for their lifespan than anything else.
- Put nothing we make in a dishwasher. Not the prints, not the pouches, not the bottle with a decal on it.
- When in doubt, spot clean by hand and air dry.
- If something goes wrong, tell us. We would rather help you fix it than have you quietly put it in a drawer.
Apparel, pressed to order
Shirts, hoodies and printed totes are pressed with vinyl, and vinyl is a plastic film sitting on top of fabric. Treat it kindly and it will outlast the garment.
- Turn it inside out before it goes in the machine. That one habit stops the print rubbing against the drum and against everything else in the load.
- Cold water, gentle cycle. Heat is what breaks the adhesive down, so there is no good reason to wash hot.
- Tumble low or hang dry. If you can hang it, hang it.
- Give a fresh press a day before its first wash. The adhesive keeps curing after the shirt leaves the bench.
- Never iron directly over the print. If the shirt needs an iron, do it inside out, or put a cloth between the iron and the vinyl.
- Skip bleach and fabric softener on printed areas.
Sewn goods
Our totes and pouches are cut and sewn from canvas, cotton and heavier twill, and they are the pieces people carry hardest, so they collect the most marks.
- Spot clean first. A damp cloth and a little mild soap handle most marks, and it saves machine-washing a whole bag over one spill.
- If you do machine wash, keep it cold and gentle, put the bag inside a pillowcase or laundry bag, and only for plain canvas with no print and no lined pocket.
- Air dry, flat or hanging. A dryer is what shrinks a cotton bag and distorts the shape of the handles.
- Do not bleach. It fades the fabric unevenly and it is hard on stitching.
- Load it sensibly. A tote almost always fails at the handle before anywhere else, which is why we stitch them twice. Carrying something far heavier than the bag was built for is the one thing the stitching cannot rescue.
Vinyl and decals
Stickers on a water bottle or a laptop live a hard life: sun, washing, and keys rattling in the same bag. Two rules carry most of the weight.
- Apply to a clean, smooth surface. Glass, hard plastic and painted metal are ideal. Textured plastic and silicone are not, and a decal that looks fine on day one will start lifting at the edges over a textured surface.
- Press it down properly when you apply it, and give it a day before it meets water.
- Hand wash the bottle. A dishwasher cycle is the fastest way to peel a decal off something.
- Keep it out of a hot car where you can. Heat softens the adhesive and the decal starts to creep.
- For wall and vehicle decals, lay it on slowly and work any air out from the middle toward the edges. If you want it off later, warm it gently with a hairdryer and peel slowly rather than tearing at it.
3D prints
Printed pieces are tougher than they look, but they are built in layers, and layers have a direction.
- Dust with a soft brush or a dry cloth. Cool water and mild soap are fine if something is properly grubby. No dishwasher, no acetone, no harsh solvent.
- Keep them out of a hot car. A printed part will soften and sag well before the plastic bottle next to it does.
- Mind the drop. A piece that survives being carried all week can still snap along a layer line if it lands badly on a hard floor. That is the one real weakness of the process, and it is worth knowing before you hang something over tile.
- For planters, use an inner pot. A liner keeps wet soil off the print itself, and it makes watering and repotting far easier.
If something does go wrong
Nearly everything we sell can be repaired, re-pressed or replaced, and we would rather hear about it than have you guess. Send a photo through the contact page with what happened and we will tell you honestly what the fix is. If it is something we got wrong, we will make it right.
Everything here is made in small batches, one at a time, in a one-person workshop. Looking after it is easier when you know how it was made, so the earlier posts cover the bench process for each craft, and the shop is where the pieces themselves live.