The Shirt Off My Back

I've been having a life and death struggle with a cold this past couple of weeks. Okay, not life and death, but enough to keep me off the bike. Well actually, I did ride the two miles to the hardware store last week to purchase a stainless steel bolt for the Beach Bike's front rack. But that doesn't really count.
My cold comes at a perfect time since I am off from work for the next week. I may have more time on my hands as the teacher's union has agreed to furloughs to reduce the state budget and it looks as though the union that represents people like me will follow suit.
There is a another story here, but I don't know if I want to get into it. I just hope it doesn't mean I have to give up the shirt off my back.
Which brings me to my cure for boredom.
I decided to make shirts.
The Flat Tire shirts.
To make a short story long, I played around with different images associated with the blog and cranked up the Photoshop.
I took a photo and added the blog title and address.
Voila!


Here's a close-up:


The process was simple:
I manipulated the image in Photoshop until I got what I wanted. I then mirrored the image. In Adobe speak, I believe it was called a horizontal rotation. I spent a while trying to figure out how to reverse the image to no avail. I eventually googled it. I guess that's why I'm not the photo major and Evil Hoku is, well, evil.
In order to save transfer paper waste, I rotated the image vertically, then inserted it onto a Word document. I pasted two of them side by side so when printing, I would get two transfers on one sheet. Then I simply printed them and cut them out.


To apply the transfers, I put my shirt over a masonite board to flatten it out (flatten, get it?). The iron was set on high, then applied with pressure on the transfer per instructions.
The only problems I had were with the color of the transfer. If you compare it to the picure at right, the transfer has a greenish tint to it. I think if I go back and change the picture to greyscale, it should be okay.
If you are going to try this at home (which you shouldn't because I am a professional), don't forget that there are transfers for light and dark colored shirts. The color of the shirt will also alter the color of the transfer as the image is a bit translucent. I would think that the transfers for dark clothing would be opaque.
I am going to try and make smaller logos and put them on my cycling jerseys; maybe on the breast or on the pockets in back. The concern here is to not melt the polyester when applying the transfer.
Total cost: fourteen dollars(for a packet of six transfer sheets).
I didn't think this project would turn out this well. Being so pleased with the results, I took off my shirt and did another one:


The possibilities here are truly infinite. A cool project that doesn't cost you your know what.
No, not an arm and a leg(see above)!