Key takeaways

• There are two routes: decorating ready-made blanks (fast, low minimums) or cut-and-sew (full control of fabric, fit and labels).
• A complete tech pack and an approved pre-production sample prevent most production problems.
• Always wash-test samples: shrinkage over about 5% or twisted side seams need fixing before bulk.
• Setup costs are spread across the order, so price per piece falls as quantity rises.
• Final AQL inspection (for example AQL 2.5) checks a statistical sample before packing.

Introduction

The T-shirt is the most widely made garment in the world. Research firms estimate that more than two billion are sold every year, and that the custom T-shirt printing market alone was worth somewhere between US$6 billion and US$9 billion in 2025, depending on how it is measured. Brands sell them, companies hand them to staff, schools and clubs wear them as uniforms, and events use them to make a crowd look like a team.

Because the T-shirt looks so simple, many buyers assume it is simple to make. It is not. Behind every good T-shirt is a chain of decisions about yarn, fabric weight, knitting, dyeing, pattern shape, stitching, print method, labelling, folding and packing. Get them right and the shirt keeps its shape, colour and print for years. Get them wrong and it twists after the first wash, shrinks a size or cracks across the logo.

Sri Lanka knows this chain well. Its apparel industry exported about US$5.02 billion of garments in 2025, up 5.42% on 2024, according to the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF). Factories here make clothing for some of the world’s best-known brands. The same skills are available to local brands, businesses and organisations that want shirts made properly.

This guide walks through every stage of custom T-shirt manufacturing, from the first idea to delivery. It explains what happens at each step, what decisions you need to make, how costs and minimum orders work, and how Dsigngo Group manages the process for clients in Sri Lanka and the UAE.

Two routes: blank-and-decorate or cut-and-sew

There are two main ways to produce a custom T-shirt. Understanding the difference is the first and most important decision.

Blank-and-decorate

A ready-made blank T-shirt is bought from a garment supplier and then printed or embroidered. This is how most print shops work. The UK printer Teepig, for example, prints on well-known blank ranges from about 145gsm organic cotton to 180gsm ringspun cotton, with no minimum order for online orders and bulk discounts from ten items.

The advantages are speed, low minimums and predictable quality. The disadvantages are limited choice of fabric, colour and fit, and the fact that the shirt carries another manufacturer’s construction and often its label.

Cut-and-sew

The fabric is chosen or developed, the pattern is drafted to your fit, and the shirt is cut and sewn from scratch. This is how fashion brands and serious uniform programmes work.

The advantages are full control over fabric, colour, fit, neck rib, stitching, labels and trims, so the garment becomes your own product. The disadvantages are higher minimum orders, longer lead times and more decisions to make.

Which is right for you?

Many brands start with blank-and-decorate to test designs, then move to cut-and-sew once they know what sells. Dsigngo Group offers both routes.

Stage 1: The brief

Every successful order starts with a clear brief. A good brief answers these questions:

• Purpose: retail, uniform, event, promotion or merchandise.
• Quantity: total pieces, and the split by size and colour.
• Budget: target price per piece, including or excluding decoration.
• Deadline: the date the shirts must be in hand, not the date you would like production to start.
• Wearers: men, women, children or unisex, and the climate they will be worn in.
• Decoration: print, embroidery, or both, and where on the garment.
• Branding: neck labels, care labels, swing tags and packaging.

Being honest about the deadline is important. A cut-and-sew order typically needs several weeks from approved sample to delivery. A rushed order often means compromises on fabric choice or quality checks.

Stage 2: Fabric selection

Fabric decides how a T-shirt feels, how it hangs and how long it lasts. The key choices are fibre, yarn, knit and weight.

• Fibre: 100% cotton, organic cotton, polyester, or blends such as 60/40 cotton-polyester or tri-blends.
• Yarn: carded open-end yarn is the most economical. Combed ringspun yarn is smoother, softer and stronger, and gives a better print surface.
• Knit: most T-shirts use single jersey. Piqué knit is used for polo shirts. Interlock is thicker and smoother on both sides.
• Weight: measured in grams per square metre (gsm). Around 140–160gsm feels light and soft, 180–200gsm feels substantial, and 220gsm and above is heavyweight, popular for streetwear and oversized styles.

Teepig’s guide makes a point that applies to any order. The right fabric depends on the purpose of the garment, how long it needs to last and the budget. A shirt for a one-day fun run does not need the same fabric as a premium retail tee.

T-Shirt Fabrics Explained: Cotton Types, GSM, Blends and Organic Cotton explains fabrics, gsm and organic cotton in detail.

Stage 3: The tech pack

For cut-and-sew production, the tech pack is the instruction manual for the factory. It removes guesswork and makes quotes comparable. A complete tech pack includes:

• Flat sketches: front, back and detail views.
• Measurement chart: body length, chest width, shoulder, sleeve length, sleeve opening, neck width and neck drop, for every size, with tolerances.
• Fabric details: composition, weight, knit and colour references (for example Pantone TCX codes).
• Trims: neck rib, neck tape, labels, threads and packaging.
• Construction: seam types and stitch types, such as cover-stitched hems and twin-needle necks.
• Artwork: print or embroidery files with size, position and colour codes.
• Labelling: brand label, care label with fibre content, size label and country of origin.

Dsigngo’s design team can prepare tech packs for clients who have an idea but no technical drawings.

Stage 4: Sampling

Sampling turns the tech pack into a real garment that you can touch, wear and wash. Typical sample stages are:

1. Proto sample: the first version, used to check the overall look and fit.
2. Fit sample: adjusted after fitting on real people, often in several sizes.
3. Size set: one piece in every size, to confirm grading.
4. Pre-production (PP) sample: made from the actual bulk fabric and trims, with final decoration. Once approved, this becomes the reference for the whole order.

Do not skip the wash test. Wash the sample at least three times, following the care label, and measure it before and after. A shirt that shrinks more than about 5% in length, or whose side seams twist towards the front, needs fabric or process changes before bulk production.

For decorated blanks, the equivalent step is a printed or embroidered proof on the real garment. It confirms size, position, colour and the hand feel of the print.

Stage 5: Fabric and trims in bulk

Once the PP sample is approved, the fabric is ordered or knitted and dyed in bulk. Points to watch:

• Shade matching: dyed fabric is checked against the approved lab dip under standard lighting (D65 daylight). Different dye lots can vary slightly, so large orders should be cut from as few lots as possible.
• Fabric inspection: rolls are checked for holes, stains, barre (horizontal stripes caused by yarn variation) and weight. A widely used method is the four-point system, where defects are scored by length.
• Shrinkage testing: a fabric sample is washed and measured so that patterns can allow for any shrinkage.
• Trims: labels, threads and packaging are approved and checked for quantity.

Stage 6: Cutting

Fabric is spread in layers on a long table, and the pattern pieces are laid out in a marker that uses as much of the fabric as possible. Good marker planning typically achieves 80–90% fabric use. The lay is then cut with a straight knife or, in larger factories, a computer-controlled cutter.

Each cut bundle is numbered so that all panels for one garment come from the same layer. This prevents slight shade differences between the front, back and sleeves of a single shirt.

Stage 7: Printing before or after sewing

Decoration can happen at two points:

• Panel printing: the front or back panel is printed before sewing. This allows large prints, prints near seams and more efficient handling in bulk.
• Garment printing: the finished shirt is printed. This is the normal method for blanks, smaller orders and DTF or DTG printing.

Screen Printing, DTF, DTG, Embroidery and More: T-Shirt Decoration Methods Compared compares screen printing, DTF, DTG, embroidery, vinyl and sublimation in detail.

Stage 8: Sewing

A standard crew-neck T-shirt is sewn in a sequence of operations on several specialised machines:

1. Shoulder seams joined with an overlock (serger), often with tape to stop stretching.
2. Neck rib attached and finished, usually with a cover stitch or twin needle, and neck tape added across the back.
3. Sleeves set into the armholes.
4. Side seams closed from the sleeve hem to the body hem in one pass.
5. Hems finished on the sleeves and body with a cover stitch.
6. Labels attached at the neck or side seam.

Stitch density matters. Around 10–12 stitches per inch is a common standard for knitwear seams. Fewer stitches make weaker seams, while too many can damage the fabric.

Stage 9: Finishing, quality control and packing

Finished shirts are trimmed of loose threads, pressed and inspected. Dsigngo’s quality gates for apparel are:

• Fabric inspection first: weight and shade checked before cutting.
• Pre-production sample approval: no bulk cutting without an approved sample.
• Inline measurement checks: garments measured against the spec during sewing.
• Print and wash testing: print adhesion and wash durability tested.
• Final random inspection: an AQL-based inspection before packing.

AQL (acceptance quality limit) inspection uses the international sampling tables in ISO 2859-1. For example, at AQL 2.5 under general inspection level II, a lot of 1,000 garments has a sample of 80 pieces and the lot is accepted with up to 5 major defects found.

Shirts are then folded, tagged, bagged and packed by size and colour into cartons with clear labels.

Costs: what drives the price of a T-shirt

The price of a custom T-shirt is the sum of several parts:

Setup costs are spread across the order, which is why price per piece falls as quantity rises. Teepig’s published UK prices show the same pattern for blanks: from about £10 for a basic shirt to £15 for an organic shirt, with 10% off ten or more items and 20% off twenty or more. Sri Lankan prices differ, but the principle is the same.

Minimum order quantities

Minimum order quantities (MOQs) exist because setup costs and fabric dyeing are only efficient at scale. Typical minimums are:

• DTF or DTG on blanks: often from one piece.
• Screen printing: often from 20–50 pieces per design, because each colour needs its own screen.
• Embroidery: often from about 10–20 pieces, plus a one-off digitising charge.
• Cut-and-sew in stock fabric colours: often a few hundred pieces per style.
• Cut-and-sew in custom-dyed fabric: often higher, because fabric must be dyed in bulk.

Lead times

A realistic timeline for a cut-and-sew order looks like this (illustrative only):

Decorated blanks can be much faster, often days rather than weeks, if the blanks are in stock.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Choosing fabric by price alone: a cheaper shirt that shrinks or twists costs more in reputation.
• Unclear artwork: low-resolution files lead to blurred prints. See How to Prepare Artwork for T-Shirt Printing: Files, Resolution, Colours and Placement.
• Wrong size split: order sizes based on the people who will wear them, not a default ratio.
• Skipping the wash test: problems with shrinkage, twisting and print cracking show up only after washing.
• Late approvals: every day spent approving samples is a day off the production schedule.
• No labels: a brand without its own neck label looks unfinished. Care labels with fibre content are also a legal requirement in many markets.

An example in practice

The following example is illustrative and does not describe a real client.

A Colombo café chain wants staff T-shirts for 60 employees across four branches, plus 300 retail shirts to sell to customers. For the staff shirts, a 180gsm ringspun cotton blank in black with a two-position embroidered logo makes sense, because the volume is small and embroidery lasts. For the retail shirts, a cut-and-sew boxy fit in a custom coffee-brown fabric gives the brand a unique product, with a water-based screen print on the back and a woven neck label. The two routes run in parallel, and the café receives both orders before its anniversary launch.

How Dsigngo Group works

Dsigngo Group combines design and production under one roof. The design team creates artwork, tech packs, labels and packaging. The production team manages fabric, sampling, cutting, sewing, decoration and quality control. Dsigngo also produces its own clothing brand, Duiker, so the team understands what a brand needs from its garments as well as what a factory needs from a brief.

The process is simple:

1. Brief and quote: you share your idea, quantity and deadline.
2. Design and tech pack: we prepare artwork and specifications.
3. Sample and approve: you test the sample and approve the final version.
4. Produce and check: bulk production with five quality gates.
5. Pack and deliver: to your door in Sri Lanka or the UAE.

Frequently asked questions

How many T-shirts do I need to order?

It depends on the route. Printed blanks can start from very small quantities, while cut-and-sew production usually needs a few hundred pieces per style.

Can you match my brand colour?

Yes. For printing, colours are matched to Pantone references. For cut-and-sew, the fabric itself can be dyed to your colour, subject to minimums.

Can I order samples first?

Yes. Sampling is strongly recommended before any bulk order.

Do you make women's and children's sizes?

Yes, with fits graded for each. See T-Shirt Fits and Sizing: How to Get the Size Right and Keep It That Way on sizing.

Can you add my own labels?

Yes. Woven or printed neck labels, care labels and swing tags can all carry your branding.

Conclusion

A custom T-shirt is a small product made through a long chain of decisions. The brands that get it right start with a clear brief, choose fabric for purpose, test samples properly and insist on quality checks before delivery. The reward is a shirt people want to keep wearing, which is the best advertisement any brand can have.

Ready to make your T-shirts? Talk to Dsigngo Group about your idea, quantity and deadline.

Request a T-Shirt Quote

Related reading

• T-Shirt Fabrics Explained: Cotton Types, GSM, Blends and Organic Cotton
• Screen Printing, DTF, DTG, Embroidery and More: T-Shirt Decoration Methods Compared
• How to Prepare Artwork for T-Shirt Printing: Files, Resolution, Colours and Placement
• T-Shirt Fits and Sizing: How to Get the Size Right and Keep It That Way
• Corporate, Event and Team T-Shirts and Polos: A Buyer's Guide to Bulk Orders
• How Denim Jeans Are Made: From Cotton Field to Finished Pair

Sources

• Teepig, "Which t-shirt?" guide, product prices and bulk discounts: https://www.teepig.co.uk/help/which-t-shirt/ and https://www.teepig.co.uk/
• Joint Apparel Association Forum data on 2025 apparel exports, reported by Daily FT and Fibre2Fashion: https://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/apparel-news/sri-lankan-apparel-exports-cross-5-bn-in-2025-307974-newsdetails.htm
• Ken Research and The Business Research Company, custom T-shirt printing market estimates for 2025.
• ISO 2859-1, sampling procedures for inspection by attributes.