Getting Ready for the American Made Awards!
Perhaps you’ve heard by now about the American Made Awards, brought to you by Avery and The UPS Store. The editors of Martha Stewart Living magazine and I are searching for the rising stars in a new generation of small-business owners. Ten American Makers have been selected and one has been chosen by our audience and will be given the Audience Choice Award. The big event is almost here! The American Made workshop is being held in New York’s Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal. For two days, we’re bringing the pages of Martha Stewart Living to life, with editors, experts, and American Made honorees showcasing the season’s best artisanal and handmade crafts, gifts, food, DIY projects, and design. In preparation for the American Made event, Anduin Havens, MSLO’s Director of Special Events & Project Designer, hosted a silkscreening workshop the other day, where employees silkscreened the American Made logo onto T-shirts for all the volunteer ambassadors to wear at the gathering at Grand Central. For more information, click here. Hope to see you next week!
1 Anduin Havens, Director of Special Events & Project Designer, is also our master stylist. She began by mixing the ink for the silk screening event.
2 Her goal was to match the exact shade of aqua blue of the official American Made Awards logo.
3 The ink for silkscreening is quite pungent smelling, but it was fun to watch Anduin mix various shades of blue and green.
4 Matching the mixture up to the Pantone color chart, it appeared as though a little more green pigment was needed!
5 A perfect match! It’s always a good idea to write down the recipe, since many batches would be required!
6 This is the printing screen, a very fine mesh stretched tightly on a frame. Up until the last century, the screens were made from silk, having been replaced by more reliable and less expensive polyester fabrics.
7 Lena Ghaleb, Digital Art Director, arrived early to teach those present how to silk screen!
8 Essentially, silkscreening is stencil printing, the process of squeezing ink through a screen that's been blocked, or masked, allowing ink to pass through and onto, in this case, T-Shirts!
9 To transfer the pattern onto the screen, a photo emulsion was applied to the screen. A negative of the desired image was placed on the screen, and exposed to light. That exposure burned away unnecessary emulsion, leaving behind a clean area in the mesh.
10 Kimberly Dumer watched while Lena demonstrated how to position a shirt beneath the screen.
11 She then poured ink over the screen.
12 It's important to keep the screen steady while performing the next step - pulling a squeegee across the screen.
13 To force the paint through the screen effectively, you must bear down very hard as you squeegee. Lena suggested using your stomach muscles for strength. You can see how the blue paint passed through the design.
14 The screen was carefully lifted, and viola! A perfectly printed T-shirt!
15 The T-shirt was hung up so the ink could dry - One down, 249 more to go!
16 Heather Kirkland, Administrative Manager of Special Projects, helped to prepare the shirts for the assembly line.
17 Anduin explained to Christine Bakelaar, Product Manager, that the logo should be placed off center, a nice design touch.
18 With the first round of volunteers trained, the assembly line was ready!
19 Colleen Egan and Christine took charge as Heather and Kim stood by, ready to hang the shirts on the line to dry. Dan Boguszewski, Senior Art Director, was very curious about the process.
20 Before long the clothing lines were full!
21 With the first screen in full operation mode, Stefanie Lynen, Deputy Design Director, helped Anduin start up the second assembly line.
22 Tracy Chou, Associate Designer Crafts, cut the paper that was placed inside the shirts to prevent the ink from bleeding.
23 While Dani Cox, Assistant Designer, kept the newly screened shirts from smudging
24 With laundry lines full, space on the floor was put to use.
25 More printers called to action! Alanna Goslin, Human Resources Coordinator and Michelle Moledo, HR Benefits & Payroll Associate, kept the presses going.
26 Rochelle DiRe, Our SVP of Human Resources, jumped in to assist Christine.
27 Silkscreening is a messy job, but no one was complaining!
28 Volunteers kept arriving - Kristen Wendling - Customer Relations Manager, Anna Pankiw - Corporate Print Director, and Julieanne Miller - Finance/Internal Audit Intern tried to place the emblem on the perfect spot.
29 Kate Lewis, AVP Dir. of Standards & Compl, tried her hand at stuffing shirts.
30 Look at Katie Strain, CAD Designer, as she made the perfect print!
31 With so many shirts drying, walking became difficult.
32 Anna, Kristen, Heather, and Julianne admired their excellent results. Doesn’t that print on Heather’s shirt look great?
33 Michele Laufik, Digital Sr Editor, and Laura Porter, CAD Designer, were really being precise.
34 Having fun, Laura?
35 Lisa Gersh, our CEO, rolled up her sleeves before getting into the action.
36 Lisa was a natual!
37 Nice job!
38 Finally, I stopped by to try my hand at silkscreening.
39 Nothing wrong with my attempt!
40 I thanked Anduin and all of the volunteers for a job well done.
41 We are sure excited about our upcoming American Made event! How about you?
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
What great fun, even if it was a mite messy.
Gloria G!!
Posted by: Gloria | October 12th, 2012 at 1:31 am
I've never seen the silk screening process in action before, thanks Martha, and by the way, the aqua blue color of the logo is so pretty! Great job ladies getting all those t-shirts done, they are going to look fantastic on the volunteer ambassadors at the American Made workshop!
Posted by: Cindy F | October 12th, 2012 at 7:00 am
Dear Martha, This is such an inspired event. I greatly enjoyed reading about the honorees in the Nov. issue of MSL. LOVE your work on so many levels. Thanks for sharing this insight into one of the many aspects of the award process. XOXO
Posted by: Burndett Andres | October 12th, 2012 at 7:54 am
This sounds so interesting and so much fun!!
Posted by: vandana craftsia | October 12th, 2012 at 7:56 am
These turned out beautiful! Love the way the black one really pops!
Posted by: Paula C. | October 12th, 2012 at 7:59 am
One engineering company I worked for years ago had a very talented artist in their employ who was the first to show me silk screening. I was curious to know why he was pouring paint into this weird looking box with a design before ‘wiping’ it off with a squeegee. Then he showed me the design he created and I of course was impressed. I think he was covering material for his dining room chairs. Another time I saw him with the paper cutter cutting up bunches of brown squares and I asked what he was going to do with them. Turns out his apartment bathroom had gaudy tiles that he couldn’t change and so he decided to cover each tile separately with those stick-on brown squares. After seeing his beautifully finished bathroom, I did one of my bathrooms in brown too! I’m sure the American Made Event is going to be very successful and I wish I was a New Yorker so I could attend. It’s probably going to be even bigger next year and that will be good too. Hopefully you’ll be reporting back to us after the event. Have fun and I’m sure I’m not the only one who wishes they could be there. Trish
Posted by: Trish | October 12th, 2012 at 9:09 am
Hi Martha, WOW! Your special, super employees sure do great voluntary work whenever it is needed and they all seem to enjoy whatever they are doing! Anduin Havens sure is a great master stylist and she did a super job hosting that silkscreening workshop to produce those beautiful logos of American Made on those 250 t-shirts! They all did a great job and all of these photos are fabulous! How fun it was to see you silkscreening in photos #38,39&40! You looked so happy and your project turned out superior! Sure would be fun to attend that great event next week and would also be great to have one of those fantastic t-shirts! I sure do miss seeing your TV Shows everyday and I'm still angry with Hallmark for not letting you continue. I love seeing your Cooking Show on PBS and I get to see it on Saturday at 5:30PM and Wednesday at 10:30Am and also watch the videos on your fantastic website! Hope you have another great day in Chicago at Home Depot and would love to be there,too! You do so many wonderful things for all of us to enjoy and I love it all! Hope you also have another great weekend! Off to see The Daily Wag where Francesca shows us "A Visit to Our Very Own Christmas Tree Farm!" Jan PS-Sure hope the Yankees win today!
Posted by: Jan Erickson | October 12th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Hi Martha,
Two things, my friend owned a silkscreen shop and could turn out over a thousand shirts for an event..she recently sold her business but it was made in America! My husband wrote a song about things made in America..once you hear it you don't forget it.. It would be so much fun if the song could get some air time. He plays it at events and people love it. Made in America Yes!!.
Posted by: Jude | October 12th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Go Team Martha! I love that all departments were involved in the silkscreening. Looks like fun!
Posted by: BG in SF | October 12th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Very cool!
Posted by: Holiday Baker Man | October 12th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Lots of willing hands appeared to make the process so much fun...it would be fun to wear one of the t-shirts.
Posted by: sherey | October 12th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Just watched your show on sauces for PBS (Which as an experienced home cook I am glad to say I've learned something new and useful each show).
My question is where can I find the defuser plate you put on your stove. I have looked on line with no success. Are there other names? Is there a brand I should look for, or a store?
I would appreciate your help as it looked like an item that would helpful in several ways.
Posted by: Anna Beth Alexander | October 13th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
I hope that such a competition incentive to raise the Made profession
Posted by: Erez | October 14th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Liked the pics of the outdoors at your home! Why do you cover the boxwood with burlap in the fall?
Posted by: Sandra Meyer | October 16th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
I love your celebration of American creativity!
Posted by: Karen | October 20th, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Hi Martha! I happened to be in NYC last week and got the opportunity to join in on the fun at Grand Central Station. What an inspiration this event was! I was also, fortunate enough to attend the last two sessions on Thursday and it was great to hear these entrepreneurs and professionals firsthand! I also, just want to say thank you Martha. Thank you for many years of sharing yourself with all of us. You are a great teacher and love the new cooking show!
Posted by: Rosemary Justice | October 22nd, 2012 at 9:43 pm
LOVE the idea...
Posted by: zeynep | February 28th, 2013 at 3:40 am