For those of you who are considering using computers and printers to create your finished flags - some things to think about:

This is the cotton sheeting supplier that I have had good luck with in past years - http://www.colortextiles.com/cat_sheets.html

One printer that has been tested by the John Wister Elementary School in Philadelphia (and used to print over 800 flags!) is the Hewlett Packard 5700 series. We bought 4 of these and paid just over $100 each (2 years ago).  It has been my experience that the best inkjet printers are those with the most direct paper path, and good access to the internal parts for clearing out bits of frayed sheeting that get left behind in the printer. I like this one because it lays the sheeting flat in the paper tray, and the finished sheets also are sitting flat waiting to be picked up - and the back of the printer comes apart for good access to the rubber wheels that advance the sheeting into the printer.  You may already have an HP deskjet that will work just as well!

Printers that load their paper vertically or twist and curl the paper as it goes through to be printed are not good choices - and it is useful to have printer whose settings allow the user to select a "card stock" or heavy paper setting for printing onto the cotton sheets.  You will have to experiment to find out how many sheets you can put in the printer at a time, and which settings give the best results for your printer.  You may find that a printer you currently own may be adapted for printing onto cotton sheeting - these are just suggestions :-)

A good plan might be to buy 2 or even 3 printers of the same make and model once you have found one that works for you - this way you can have a backup printer when one gets overheated from handling your endless stream of cotton sheeting - or you can involve more than one person in printing your poems.  Here is a good deal on an HP deskjet that looks like it provides a decent value.

At Wister School, I even experimented with a large, heavy duty laser printer - and had good luck printing onto the cotton sheeting. I used a Lexmark T 630 and opened the front panel so that the cotton sheets could be fed one at a time, like when printing envelopes. One word of caution - if you choose to try a laser printer, remember that there is a hot drum inside that is spinning, and it is not going to like having little threads or glue passing through its paper path... I always made sure that only pristine, square sheets of cotton were used, with no frayed edges.