T-shirt color other than black or white

[lappelbaum]

Any possibility of offering the iNat shirt in another color? Like gray or tan?

[earthknight]

Tan would be a nice option instead of white.

[reiner]

I’ve got a white one because I photograph “bugs” and its the least contrast against a bright sky so I scare the little critters as little as possible. :) Tan might be better for hiding in the bushes from mammals and birds though. Its probably a demand thingy so if they sell enough they might.

[lappelbaum]

White is super noticeable to birds. Black gets way too hot. If they offered something else like gray or tan, I would be buying multiple shirts for me and my friends.

[pisum]

@lappelbaum

Like gray or tan?

for tan, you could probably take a white t-shirt, wash it to remove oils from manufacturing, soak it in a pot of tea or coffee, then rinse and pop in the dryer. the color probably will wash out over time (without mordant to fix), but maybe better than nothing. mud might make some nice colors, too, depending on what kind of mud you have.

update/edit: i want to make a slight correction to the above. i looked up tea and coffee as dyes, and they are noted as substantive dyes, which means they probably don’t need a mordant to bond with the cloth. instead, heat (or a base) should be enough to fix those dyes. tea also contains tannins, which are a mordant in themselves (besides providing interesting color possibilities).

here’s an interesting set of videos that i came across of some folks dyeing yarn using mango wood (which i assume would be a tannic dye like tea), mud (which i assume contains iron, although they mention something about sulfur in the video), and alkaline water (which i assume helps to set substantive dyes).

the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHsLMh_hPaw
the result: https://youtu.be/Vh7zHA-V33I?t=178

in short:

• mango wood alone = light yellow or tan
• mango wood + base = brighter yellow (i assume the base helps to set the dye a little better or somehow otherwise reacts with the tannins)
• mango wood + mud = various shades of gray, depending on mud (which i assume is from iron reacting with the tannins)

assume if you did the mud alone, you would get some shade of orange or brown.

[lappelbaum]

Cool. Never tried something like that before. I’ll test it out on a plain white t-shirt.

[kiwifergus]

I do the camo effect with every shirt I buy… coffee stain… that one’s icecream… chocolate… some grass stains where I slipped down that bank, oh, and that’s my skin, showing through where the branch tore it on the way back up…

[botanicaltreasures]

Use turmeric if you want a bright yellow t-shirt. Here’s my video about plant dyes. Turmeric starts at 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlp3Q5_dVQc&t=19s. Have fun!