Pantones In Illustrator, for printing on tee-shirts.

Hi there,
I am going to be sending in a file for a client, which will be printed onto tee shirts. The client is using 10 pantones (crazy), which is the most I have every worked with.
Usually when I work with pantones, I give the printer the CMYK layers in one folder and the pantones on a separate one. It's my understanding that when using pantones, the printer uses an extra pass of ink. A round with CMYK and then one with the pantone colour, making it a 5 (or 2, whatever) colour job.
Haha... so, with 10 pantones, am I right in thinking that the printer is going to be making 10 passes of ink? That just doesn't seem economical (and very expensive!). I will call the printer, most likely, but thought it would be great to educate myself a bit first.
I hope that made some sort of sense... thanks in advance for any advice. :)
-Sheena

By "printing on tee shirts" I assume you mean silkscreen printing.
Six spot colors in textile screen printing is very common. More is not uncommon.
Screen printing is a whole other world from offset lithography. Substrates are dark as often as they are not. So inks are often opaque. On dark substrates, opaque light colored inks (even white) may be used as highlights. There are metallic inks, puff inks, underlay inks, glitter inks--all kinds of stuff.
The piece of artwork with, say, three main colors may use a midtone, a highlight, and a shade spot color for each general "color", for a total of 9 colors.
Visit the local department store and browse some of the more vibrant designs you see on T-shirts. Study them up close and you'll see what I mean.
For example: a graphic of a dinosaur may use three or four different spot-color greens and yellows with which to "buld up" the shading of the dino's scales.
The designer has alot more creative room in which to play than with ordinary four color process. A designer who knows how to take advantage of the potential can make some really dramatic artwork.
JET

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