christine@hatricksportswear.com
Find Us on Facebook!Custom Screen Printing in Norton, Massachusetts
Screen printed shirts that still look right in year three.
Teams, schools, trades, events and small businesses from Norton to Bridgewater. One shirt or a thousand. There is no minimum, and we have been printing in Norton since 2009.
You’ve Probably Been Burned Once
Most people who call us have a story. Almost none of them are complicated stories.
The shirts came in a shade of red that wasn’t the team’s red. The logo printed the size of a postage stamp because nobody looked at the art before it went on press. The order showed up two days after the tournament. Or the print cracked and flaked off after four washes, and now there’s a box of them in a closet that nobody wants to talk about.
None of that is difficult to avoid. It happens because somewhere in the chain nobody actually looked at the job. It went into a web form, came out of a warehouse, and no human touched it in between.
We’re a small shop. Christine sees your art. You get a proof before we burn a screen. If something looks wrong to us, we’ll call you instead of printing it and hoping.
Screen Printing Isn’t Always the Answer. Here’s When It Is.
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh screen, one screen for every color in your design. Twelve shirts and a hundred shirts take about the same setup. Only one of them spreads that work across a lot of garments.
The more shirts you need, and the fewer colors in the design, the more screen printing wins.
| Method | Best for | Feel | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen printing | Bulk runs, team tees, event shirts, spirit wear, simple bold designs | Soft when printed well, sits in the fabric | Cost per shirt drops fast with quantity. Every ink color adds setup. |
| DTF transfers | Small runs, full-color art, photos, gradients, one-offs | Slightly raised, smooth | Great for six shirts or a design with twenty colors. Doesn’t get cheaper at volume the way screen printing does. |
| DTG | Very small runs on cotton, detailed art | Printed into the fabric, very soft | Loves 100% cotton. Less happy on performance polyester. |
| Embroidery | Polos, hats, jackets, workwear, anything you want to look permanent | Stitched, textured, dimensional | Better on structured garments. Fine detail and thin text don’t stitch well. |
| Sublimation | Light polyester, all-over prints, dye-in-the-fabric jerseys | No feel at all. It’s in the fiber | Polyester and light colors only. Won’t work on cotton or dark garments. |
A shop that only screen prints will tell you screen printing is the answer to every question. If your job is really a DTF job or an embroidery job, we’d rather tell you that on the phone than sell you the wrong thing.
Not sure which one your job needs? Call 1-877-99-GOALS, or tell us about the job and we will pick the method and explain why.
No Minimum on Custom Shirts. One or One Thousand.
Almost every shop and every national site has a minimum: 12, 24, sometimes 48 pieces. We don’t. If you need six shirts for a crew, we’ll print six. If you need one for a retirement gift, we’ll print one.
No Minimum
One piece or one thousand. That goes for screen printing, embroidery, transfers and engraving.
Reorders Are Easy
We keep your art on file. A reorder is usually a phone call, not a whole new project.
Mixed Orders Welcome
Tees, hoodies and a couple of quarter-zips in the same run is normal, not a problem.
Small Runs, Priced Straight
On a very small job we may steer you to transfers instead. It usually costs you less and looks better.
That’s not a loss leader or a trial offer. It’s how we’ve always run it, because the coach who needs four replacement jerseys in March is the same coach who orders eighty in August.
What Actually Drives the Price of Screen Printing
Nobody in this business publishes a price grid, and there’s a reason: a t-shirt order and a jacket order for the same logo are completely different jobs. You still shouldn’t have to guess at what moves the number.
| What moves the price | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Quantity | The biggest lever by far. Screens, mixed ink, press setup and a test print are a fixed cost. Twelve shirts carry it across twelve garments; two hundred carry it across two hundred. If you’re on the fence about ordering extras, ask what the next tier looks like. |
| Number of ink colors | Each color is its own screen, its own setup, its own pass on the press. A one-color print on a colored shirt is the cheapest thing we do. Often we can simplify a design by a color or two without you losing anything. We’ll suggest it if we see it. |
| Number of print locations | Front only is one thing. Front, back and a sleeve is three separate setups and three passes. Sleeve and left-chest prints look great and are worth it. Just know they aren’t free. |
| The garment itself | A basic cotton tee and a Nike quarter-zip are separated by a lot before a drop of ink is involved. We carry Bella+Canvas, District, Comfort Colors, Port Authority, Sport-Tek, Nike, Under Armour, Carhartt and more. Tell us your budget per person and we’ll show you two or three options at that number. |
| Ink type and specialty work | Standard plastisol covers most jobs. Soft-hand and water-based inks, puff, metallic, and printing white ink onto a dark garment all take extra work. |
| Turnaround | Standard is 10–14 business days from art approval. If we have to move you ahead of other jobs to hit a date, that can affect the price, and we’ll say so before we do it. |
We’ll Tell You Where You Could Save
We’ll tell you what your order costs before you commit to it, and we’ll tell you where you could save money. If dropping from three colors to two saves you real money on 150 shirts, we’re going to mention it.
Art and setup fees: most of the time it’s included. We’ll tell you upfront either way. No surprise line items on the invoice.
From Your Logo to a Print-Ready Proof
A vector file is ideal. A photo of last year’s shirt works too. We’ve started from all of it.
Send What You’ve Got
A vector file (.ai, .eps, high-res .pdf) is ideal. A photo of last year’s shirt, a logo off your own website, or a sketch on a napkin all work.
We Clean It Up or Build It
If your file isn’t print-ready, we fix it. If you don’t have a logo at all, we’ll design one with you. Design help is part of the job here.
You Get a Proof
A digital mockup on the actual garment color, at the actual print size, with the ink colors called out. Nothing goes to press until you say yes.
You Approve It
This is the part people miss. Turnaround is 10–14 business days from art approval, not from the day you called.
We Print, Check & Pack
We pull shirts off the press, check them against the proof and box them up, sorted by name and size for team orders.
Have Art and a Date? That’s Enough to Start.
Send us the design, tell us how many and when you need them, and we’ll come back with a real number.
The phone is the fastest way to reach us. Call 1-877-99-GOALS.
Why Some Prints Crack and Ours Don’t
A screen print fails for boring, preventable reasons. Ink that wasn’t cured at the right temperature. Too much ink laid down in one heavy pass. The wrong ink on a performance fabric it was never meant to sit on. Then the shirt goes through a hot dryer a few times and the print starts to check and flake.
Curing is the part nobody outside a print shop thinks about, and it’s the whole ballgame. Plastisol has to reach a specific temperature all the way through the ink film or it never fully bonds. Under-cure it and the print looks perfect on day one and starts failing in a month.
- Cured properly, every run. We check it, because a print that fails in six weeks costs us a customer.
- The right ink for the fabric. Polyester needs different handling than cotton, especially on athletic gear.
- Bleed control on dark garments. Dye migration is why some red shirts turn a white print pink.
- Print size checked against the garment. A design sized for an adult XL looks absurd on a youth small.
- We check the run, not just the first one. Shirts get pulled and looked at throughout.
Washing advice we give everyone: inside out, cold water, tumble low, and skip the fabric softener. Do that and a properly cured print will outlast the shirt.
What a Bad Print Job Actually Costs You
If you’re a business, a shirt is a uniform, and a uniform is what a customer sees before they see your work. A cracked logo on a fading shirt tells someone you cut corners, whether or not that’s remotely true. Plumbers, landscapers, electricians and contractors working out of Norton, Attleboro and Taunton live or die on looking like a real outfit when they knock on the door.
If you’re a team or a school, the cost is different but it stings more. The shirts don’t arrive, and a hundred kids don’t get their tournament tee. The parent who volunteered to organize it takes the blame for something a print shop got wrong. That person doesn’t volunteer again next year.
The cheapest quote is very rarely the cheapest outcome. Reprinting because the color was wrong costs twice, and no reprint gets back the Friday night you missed. We won’t always be the cheapest number you get, but we’ll be straight about whether your date is achievable. We’d rather say no than miss your date.
Who We’re Printing For This Week
Different jobs, one approach: we work out what you actually need before anything goes on a press.
Sports Teams & Youth Leagues
Practice tees, warmups, tournament shirts, senior night, and the “we made the playoffs” run that has to happen in four days. Baseball calls in February, football in July, hockey around October.
Teams & UniformsSchools, PTOs & Boosters
Field day shirts, class-of shirts, homecoming, spirit wear, staff shirts. Most of these end up as an online store so nobody’s collecting cash in an envelope.
School Spirit WearTrades & Small Businesses
Crew tees, hi-vis, company hoodies, shop shirts. The trades economy from Attleboro to Taunton is real and steady, and work shirts get worn hard.
Business & WorkwearEvents & Fundraisers
Road races, golf tournaments, camps, reunions, memorial shirts, awareness walks. Anything with a date attached, which means the date is the whole job.
FundraisingRestaurants, Gyms & Local Shops
Staff shirts, retail tees you actually sell, merch for the front counter. Small runs and reorders are normal here.
Events & ReunionsNonprofits & Community Groups
Volunteer shirts, walk teams, scout troops and town committees, including a single shirt for a single person.
Get a QuoteWhat We Print On
Quality blanks from the brands people already recognise, at more than one price point.
Tees & Tanks
Bella+Canvas, District, Comfort Colors, Next Level, and performance blends for teams that actually sweat in them.
Hoodies, Crews & Quarter-Zips
Independent, Sport-Tek, Port Authority, Boxercraft, Nike, Under Armour and OGIO.
Everything Else
Carhartt and workwear, caps and beanies, duffels, totes, aprons, socks and shorts.
Promo ProductsFull brand and catalog list on Products & Brands → If you don’t see something, ask. The catalogs are enormous and we haven’t put all of it on a web page.
Screen Printing Turnaround and Lead Times
Working backward from a date? Tell us the date first. We’ll tell you when we need art in hand to make it, and we’ll be honest if it doesn’t work. Busy stretches are predictable: February and March for spring sports, July and August for fall sports and back-to-school, October and November for winter sports and holiday orders.
Screen Printing in Norton, Attleboro, Mansfield and Foxborough
We’re in Norton, Massachusetts, by appointment. It’s a working print shop rather than a storefront, so a quick call before you come by saves you a locked door.
Most of our work stays close: Attleboro, North Attleborough, Mansfield, Foxborough, Taunton, Easton, Plainville, Wrentham, Franklin, Bridgewater, Raynham, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Sharon, Stoughton, Canton and Walpole. We print for Wheaton College groups here in Norton, for businesses working around Patriot Place in Foxborough, and for youth programs in most of the towns on that list.
Being close by matters in the moments that count. When a team makes a run they didn’t plan for and needs shirts by Tuesday, you want a shop you can drive to, not a support ticket. We can meet you at the school, the field or your shop.
Call 1-877-99-GOALS and you’ll get Christine, not a queue. See our full service area →
Some of the People We Print For
High School
Middle School
Schools
Middle School
Elementary
Mansfield
Recreation Dept.
Town Hall
Adoption
Contracting
Metals
Liston
“Thank you so much Christine! The shirts were terrific and everyone was so happy! I will be sure to recommend you in the future!”
Screen Printing Questions We Get a Lot
Is there a minimum order for screen printing?
No. One shirt or a thousand. On a very small run we may recommend DTF transfers instead of screens. That usually costs you less and looks just as good.
How long does screen printing take?
10 to 14 business days from art approval. Not from when you first call. From the day you approve the proof. Rush of about a week is often possible, but we never guarantee it until we’ve looked at the schedule.
What file format do you need for my logo?
Vector is best: .ai, .eps, or a high-resolution .pdf. If all you have is a photo of an old shirt or a low-res image off a website, send it anyway. We recreate art all the time.
I don’t have a logo at all. Can you make one?
Yes. We’ll design it with you. Bring an idea, a rough sketch, or just a name and a sport.
Do you charge art or setup fees?
Most of the time it’s included, and we’ll tell you upfront either way. You won’t find a surprise fee on the invoice.
Can you match my exact team or company colors?
In most cases, yes. Tell us your Pantone numbers if you have them and we’ll mix to them. Some colors behave differently on different garment colors, and we’ll flag it if we think what you’ll get won’t match what you’re picturing.
Can you print on shirts I already bought?
Sometimes. Talk to us first. Some garments and fabrics don’t take ink well, and we won’t be responsible for a garment we didn’t supply if it doesn’t cooperate. Nine times out of ten it’s cheaper and safer to buy the blanks through us.
What’s the difference between screen printing and DTF?
Screen printing pushes ink through a screen, one screen per color. It gets cheaper per shirt as the quantity goes up, so it’s the right call for bulk runs. DTF is a printed transfer applied with heat, which suits small runs, photos, and designs with lots of colors. We do both and we’ll tell you which fits your job.
Will the print crack?
Not if it’s cured right and washed sensibly. Wash inside out in cold water, tumble low, skip the fabric softener. If a print of ours fails early, call us and we’ll make it right.
Can you do youth sizes?
Yes. Youth sizes through adult 4XL on most garments, and larger on some. Mixed youth and adult in the same order is completely normal.
Can you print on hoodies, hats, bags and polos too?
Hoodies and bags, yes. Hats and polos are usually better as embroidery. The fabric and the structure suit stitching more than ink. We’ll tell you which way to go.
How do we handle sizes for a big group?
Two options. Send us a size breakdown, or let us set up an online store where everyone orders their own size and pays with their own card. The second one is free to set up and saves whoever volunteered a lot of grief.
Let’s Get Your Shirts Printed
Tell us what you need, how many, and when. If we can’t hit your date we’ll say so. If we can, you’ll have a real number quickly.
No minimums · Family owned in Norton, Massachusetts since 2009 · Monday–Friday 9–5, appointments outside those hours · Contact us