Thursday 27 May 2010

RTY Workwear leads the way

RTY Workwear is proving so popular that JKL Clothing are planning to increase their stock levels to maintain the quick delivery times that customers have come to expect.
During the last year, workwear garment manufacturer RTY has been JKL Clothing second best selling workwear range. This is down to two main reasons. Firstly wearers of RTY Workwear are often pleasantly surprised by the quality of the clothing. Here at JKL Clothing we hear from many of our customers who report that their RTY garments are performing really well and delivering all the aspects they are looking for in workwear, namely comfort and robustness. The second reason for RTY's increased demand is price. Many of our customers are surprised that such reasonably priced workwear garments can deliver the quality that they are finding in RTY products.
The RTY workwear range is divided into 3 separate areas. Firstly there is the RTY High Visibility range. This range of workwear consists of all the Hi Vis products that RTY supply, including Hi Vis clothing such as T-shirt, Polo Shirts and Jackets along with other items such as backpacks and messenger bags. To compliment this range RTY have another safety range of garments, the RTY Enhanced Vis group of products, this includes enhanced visibility t-shirts, polo shirts and fleeces. Finally RTY have there own complete workwear collection of garments, ranging from trousers, jackets and polo shirts through to coveralls, overalls and vests. As you can see, whatever your workwear requirements RTY has the garments to meet your needs and with the prices and value at JKL Clothing were confident that we will soon have to replenish our RTY stock again.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

Fruit of the Loom - Apparel industries oldest company

There can't be many company's trading today that can trace their beginnings back as far as 1851, but that is exactly what the branded clothing product company Fruit of the Loom can do.
Fruit of the Loom started in Rhode Island, America when Robert Knight, a textile mill owner and a friend, Rufus Skeel who owned a small shop selling cloth got together and formed one of the first branded clothing companies in America. Rufus Skeel's daughter had painted pictures of apples and applied them to cloth. It was this image that Rudus Steel decided to use for his labels and this apple can still be seen today on the Fruit of the Loom logo. In 1871 Robert Knight applied for and obtained a patent. He was issued the patent number 418 for the brand Fruit of the Loom.
Since the late 1800's, Fruit of the Loom has lead a varied and at times unstable life. This culminated as recently as 1999 when Fruit of the Loom filed for protected bankruptcy, following losses of $576.2 million.
The company was bought from bankruptcy by Berkshire Hathaway Corporation in January 2002. A more recent problem for Fruit of the Loom was the boycott by over 100 universities in 2009 when it emerged that Fruit of the Loom were allegedly violating workers rights in Honduras, where it is the countries largest employer. This lead to significant losses in profit.
Fruit of the Loom is probably best known for its printable garments, particularly it's t-shirts. JKL Clothing has been using the Fruit of the Loom Valueweight t-shirts in almost all of its t-shirt printing production runs for some time. Vicky Clow (JKL Clothing's, artwork and production manager) comments "the Fruit of the Loom Valueweight t-shirt ticks all the boxes our customers require, it is a good quality garment at a reasonable price and from a printers point of view provides a great surface on which to screen print"
To view the Fruit of the Loom t-shirt range and see what JKL Clothing can produce from their t-shirt printing facility, visit the JKL Clothing website at www.jklclothing.co.uk

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Free Screen set up charge when ordering printed garments

JKL Clothing continue to offer free set up charges for all printing when your order for printed garments exceeds 100. We are the only printed garments company within our sector that offers free screen set ups on as low a quantity as 100.

So why do many companies charge for the setting up of screens for printing.? Put simply there is work involved, so therefore a charge is payable. In order to create a screen from which you are able to print you firstly have to separate the colours of the design and create individual screens for each colour in the design. This process obviously takes time. JKL Clothing do however realise how prohibitive a one off screen set up charge can be, which is why we have waived it for orders of 100 or more. Our philosophy is simple, once we have produced a customers screen, that screen is then saved for a period of 12 months so that should you re order within that period and require the same artwork design, no set up charge is payable on any quantity ordered, providing the minimum order quantity of 20 is reached. It is hoped that once you have seen the quality of our printing and experienced our superior customer service you will return time and time again.

JKL Clothing also appreciate the current economic climate and the difficulties faced by both business's and individuals alike. It is for this reason that we will do all we can to ensure we continue to provide value and service to all our customers, big and small.

So next time you are looking for a quality t-shirt printing company remember that JKL Clothing are committed to making printed garments as cost effective as possible.

Embroidered Clothing prices held for 2nd year running

JKL Clothing are pleased to announce that embroidery prices are to remain static for the second year in a row.

Embroidered clothing is one of JKL Clothing's main areas of expertise alongside screen printing and workwear supply. During the recent economic downturn we have worked alongside our suppliers and customers alike to ensure we continue to provide the best possible deal without compromising our commitment to superior customer service. We constantly monitor the competition and are confident we continue to out perform our contemporaries in terms of product quality and value for money.

One of the reasons that we are able to maintain our low embroidery prices is that we invested in market leading Barudan embroidery machines that provide us with excellent efficiency and minimum downtime, resulting in improved performance from our embroidery department.

Jeff Harris, JKL Clothing's MD recently said "we are all too well aware of the economic difficulties faced by our customers, by refraining from increasing our embroidery prices for a second year we are doing all we can to maintain our position as market leaders and help our loyal customers during what can only be described as difficult market conditions"

Monday 10 May 2010

JKL Clothing add to Portwest Workwear Range

JKL Clothing, the online workwear and PPE website announces that they are to increase the number of Portwest workwear garments available on their site. JKL Clothing currently stock over 120 Portwest workwear lines. This is to be increased to around 200 within the next month, allowing their customers more choice from the Portwest range.

The garments that will be available include workwear clothing items such as trousers, jackets and hi vis clothing. Alongside this will be an increase in the number of PPE garments available including further choices in gloves and protective headwear.

Jeff Harris, JKL ClothingMD comments “the Portwest range has been a great success and we intend to provide our customers with as much choice as possible as we see the Portwest brand growing over the coming months”

Thursday 6 May 2010

JKL Clothing to publish a guide to t-shirt printing

JKL Clothing announces plans to publish a guide to t-shirt screen printing.

Over the coming weeks JKL Clothing will be publishing an in depth guide to screen printing onto t-shirts and other garments. To be published on the JKL Clothing website blog and the clothing blog, JKL Clothing aim to provide a detailed step by step guide on how to improve the quality of your screen printing resulting in a superior print and finish.

Among the aspects of screen printing that will be covered are, screen tension, choice of garment, squeegee pressure, drying and much more. Follow the guide, which will be published weekly and learn how to produce high quality prints time after time.

Whether you are an experienced screen printer or a novice trying screen printing for the first time, the many hints and tips are sure to provide you with the extra knowledge to allow you to improve the quality of your printing and steal a march on your competitors. Someone once said “knowledge is power”, well with the information that you will gain from the JKL Clothing t-shirt printing guide you are sure to increase your printing ability and set yourself out from the crowd.

So be sure to bookmark the JKL Clothing website and look out for the free guide published on the blog. It’s free, and who knows could be the difference between printing success and failure.

Wednesday 5 May 2010

What are the variables that make up the quality of a screen printed t-shirt?

There are many important factors that go to make up how well a screen printed t-shirt will turn out once the finished garment leaves the production line.

In this article I am going to look at just a few of these variables and will be looking to complete the guide in articles that I publish over the next few weeks.

So, if you want to improve the quality of your t-shirt printing then follow this guide over the coming weeks and hopefully you will be able to pick up a few hints and tips that will create a garment screen printing process that leads to a printed t-shirt you can be proud of.

Screen tension – Screens need to be of the same tension as each other. This way you will get consistency across the whole print run. If you use one screen that has a very low tension it may lead to the ink been laid down unevenly and not providing good coverage. Your screens should therefore have sufficient tension and importantly, have the same tension as the other screens been used on that run.

Squeegee pressure and squeegee stroke time - The pressure on the squeegee should be constant throughout the stroke. This again will lead to an even coverage of ink onto the t-shirt. If the pressure is not consistent throughout the print run you will not get the same amount of ink applied to each t-shirt, this will lead to inconsistencies throughout the run. As with squeegee pressure, the time of the stroke must also be consistent in order to produce a consistent finished printed t-shirt.

Squeegee maintenance – Make sure that the squeegee blade is level and replaced when it loses its sharp edge. By ensuring your squeegee blade is fit for the job, you are again taking away a variable that can lead to a disappointing printing result.

These are my first 3 tips for increased success in t-shirt printing. If you are reading this article and thinking this is something that may be best left to a professional t-shirt printing company then why not visit JKL Clothing’s website and allow us to show you how we can take your image or design and screen print it onto a garment of your choice.