How to Remove a Silk Screen From a Cotton Shirt. Learning to get a perfect print when you are learning to do silk screen printing takes practice. Even when you are experienced at it, it is inevitable for there to sometimes be smudges or smears in the image of the screen print. Although the ink is somewhat permanent there are a few tricks to getting a screen print off a shirt.
Rinse the shirt immediately in cold water. This will remove most of the fresh ink from the shirt. Don't use hot water because the heat will help set the ink to the fabric of the shirt.
Rinse the shirt in warm water once you have rinsed all the ink that you can from the shirt in the cold water.
Allow the shirt to dry completely once you have removed all the ink that you can by rinsing it. There still may be ink printed on the shirt at this point.
Lay a paper bag with the shiny side up on top of the area that still has ink on it.
Use an iron on just heat, no steam, to iron over the area with the shirt and paper bag. The heat will force the ink to transfer to the paper bag.
Repeat Steps 4 and 5 until no more ink is remove by the iron and paper bag.
Use sugar to lightly scrub the area of the shirt that still has ink on it. Be sure to only lightly scrub since the sugar may not only remove the ink but can also damage the fabric of the shirt.