100% Cotton T-Shirt

The shirt itself

A Bella+Canvas 3001 — 4.2 ounces of 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton at 32 singles. Combed and ring-spun means the short fibers are pulled out before spinning, so the yarn is finer and the surface is smoother. Practically: it is lighter and softer than a standard heavyweight tee, and the print sits flatter on it.

Side-seamed with a classic fit, so it follows the body instead of hanging square. This is the one staff keep wearing after the shift — which is worth more to a cafe or a brewery than a shirt that only comes out at work.

Black and white only, on purpose. Two colors, no guessing which shade of navy showed up, and the contrast is as clean as printing gets. S through 3XL.

Fabric

4.2 oz, 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 32 singles

Cut

Side-seamed, classic unisex fit

Colors

Black and white

Sizes

S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL

How it wears

Ring-spun cotton this fine gets softer with washing rather than thinner. Cold wash, inside out, tumble low and the print stays put — the thing that kills a shirt is heat, not use. Skip the dryer sheets on the black; they leave a film that dulls white ink faster than anything a customer will do to it.

The 3001 is preshrunk but it is a lighter fabric, so it moves a little more than a heavyweight across the first few washes. If you are outfitting a crew and someone is between sizes, size up rather than down — nobody has ever complained that a staff shirt was slightly roomy.

Before any of it prints

A softer, lighter shirt shows a crooked print more than a heavy one does — there is less texture to hide behind. So the art gets squared and centered on the garment before anything goes near the press.

On a batch, the first one gets printed and looked at. White ink on black reads differently in the hand than it does on a screen, and that is the moment to catch it, not when twenty of them are already folded.