Tag: t-shirts

Plus size, please!

blast from the past - gothstuff Baby Mummy tshirt
blast from the past – gothstuff Baby Mummy tshirt

Why are plus size organic cotton t-shirts still not a thing? 

I’ve been doing t-shirt-printing-related things for around eighteen years now, on and off. (These photos are from 2004.)

To begin with it was impossible to get plus size t-shirts at all (note to manufacturers: size UK16 is not a plus size!), and now you can, from a few brands, but apparently not from any of the organic ones. And they’re still not easily available from print-on-demand companies, who tend to offer a smaller selection of brands and styles, now that we no longer own the heat press and vinyl cutter ourselves.

(Also, while I’m having a rant, making things in a “loose fit” doesn’t mean that you can offer fewer sizes just because the actual width of the garment is the same as a larger size in another style!) 

blast from the past - gothstuff light reflective bat tshirt
blast from the past – gothstuff light reflective bat tshirt

I really want to design some more t-shirts, but organic cotton is apparently only for people who have a narrower than 43″ chest. Oh, except for men. Who can have organic t-shirts up to a 62″ chest. Why can’t women have that?

blast from the past - gothstuff Baby Cthulhu tshirt
blast from the past – gothstuff Baby Cthulhu tshirt

Well, apparently they can, because most of those t-shirts are labelled “unisex”… but because the sizes get longer as they go up in width, well, heaven forbid that a shorter person might want a XXXL t-shirt that doesn’t come down to their knees. Or with flapping great sleeves down to their elbows.

I really want everything I design to be available to as many people as possible (which is why I made my dresses up to a size 30+), and it’s making me very cross that, eighteen years since I started printing t-shirts, this apparently still can’t happen.

Making Do and Mending

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Well, isn’t this irritating? One freshly-dyed white t-shirt (Dylon Rosewood Red, not as lurid as it appears in these photos!) complete with stain that, annoyingly, wasn’t visible when the t-shirt was white. Now that the t-shirt’s dyed I can’t use a stain-removal product or scrub at the fabric, as that will most likely take off the dye as well as the stain. My only option now is to cover it up with something.

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That’s better! A bit out of focus, but these are floral motifs carefully snipped from a small piece of Lancaster & Cornish organic cotton lace. I’m hoping there might be just enough loose dye still in the fabric that a little bit of it leaches out into the lace the next time it’s washed, just to soften the cream colour a little bit. But if that doesn’t happen, no worries, because the cream lace makes the white stitching on the t-shirt look as bit more as though it’s supposed to be white on purpose.

Knowing that the stitching wouldn’t take the dye was the main reason I chose the colours I did for dyeing my trousers – beige to dark brown, and pale blue to dark grey. With the contrast stitching they just look like smart, lightweight jeans. I also have plans for mending all of my funny-coloured trousers in the future. I’m on the look-out for small pieces of Liberty print fabrics that I can use for patching, and maybe for adding a hint-of-a-print on the turn-ups. Hopefully that will be a long way off yet though!

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While I was mending things, I made the decision to take two of my most beloved t-shirts out of my wardrobe. This Suzanne Vega t-shirt is from the very first gig I ever went to – at the Wulfrun Civic Hall in Wolverhampton, on April 8th 1993. (We were sitting three rows from the back, and Suzanne Vega had a cough.) Having been worn pretty often over the past 22 years, although recently relegated to hospital wear or pyjamas only, it’s safe to say that this t-shirt is very much past its best! But there was no way on earth I was going to throw it out, and it’s really not fit to give to a charity shop, so it was the work of about five minutes to turn it into a cushion. The tour dates are on the back.

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The same fate befell my other favourite t-shirt, also purchased in 1993, this time from Forbidden Plant in Hanley. I didn’t own any other green clothes, and it was far too big for me (being a men’s size XL), but I just had to have it. It saw me through art college and University, but again, it’s not even really fit to wear as pyjamas any more. But, because it was still in my wardrobe, it kept mysteriously finding its way out and onto my body. Drastic measures clearly had to be taken. So, cushion it is.

(No, I don’t iron my bedding. Sorry, Mum!)

Making these two cushions from my favourite t-shirts has made me wonder though – are there any items in my current wardrobe that I can imagine myself still wanting to keep in 22 years’ time?!

Test Vest

Kwik Sew 3524

This is Kwik Sew 3524, a simple-looking strappy vest top. It’s made from two of Paul’s old t-shirts. It looks okay, but there are a couple of things I’d change. The join of the straps to the body is a bit bulky, I’m sure there’s a better way of putting that togther. And the neck is just a little bit wonky, which a line of top stitching would fix, no problem.

Kwik Sew 3524

This is the inside, which is lined with a shelf bra. Again, it’s okay, but I don’t like having that inch of nylon elastic directly against the skin, when it could be hidden between the two layers of nice soft cotton. And I need to join the two layers together at the side seam, otherwise it takes a certain amount of faffing about to make the two layers line up neatly. And who has time for faffing when they’re trying to put their vest on in the morning?

Anyway, thanks to our impending house move (have I mentioned that yet? I’m not really on top of what’s going on around here lately), Paul has pulled a big pile of surplus-to-requirements t-shirts out of his wardrobe. His clear-out is my gain, because I now have plenty of nice soft jersey to have a couple more test runs at this.

Hopefully the eventual result will be a nice soft, comfortable vest!

Continental Clothing

Please forgive me while I get a little bit over-excited for a minute.

Way back in the mists of time, I ran a t-shirt printing company. We used the best quality t-shirts we could afford to buy at the time, but I wanted more. I wanted organic cotton. Sustainable production. Ethical business practices. And all of these things were sadly rather hard to find. I did buy some organic cotton t-shirts, and some Fair Trade ones, but most of the inventory I bought all those years ago is still sitting in my Shed. The fit wasn’t right, the colours weren’t right, and they were so much more expensive than ordinary t-shirts that nobody was willing to pay for them.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I was looking again for wholesale suppliers of organic t-shirts that I could use in my dyeing experiments. Imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon Continental Clothing. All of their garments are either organic, fairly traded, sustainably produced or a combination of all three. They have exemplary business practices, and even more exciting, the clothes they produce are so much more than just plain t-shirts!

I have grand plans for the racerback tunic shown above, for example, worn with a contrasting vest or t-shirt underneath. Think how pretty it would look in a patchy natural dye, with hand embroidery all around the neck and armholes…

Even better, and the thing that I’m extremely over-excited about, is the fact that they offer bespoke manufacturing! Okay, so a minimum order of 150 garments per size is out of my reach at the moment, but think of the possibilities! The tunic above would be fantastic as a dress, for example. Continental could make it for me, and I’d add the embellishments myself. It would work out significantly cheaper in the long run than me buying organic jersey at retail prices, making the clothing myself, and then embellishing it.

I’ve applied for an account with them, so I can start by buying a few sample garments for myself. I can then do lots of dye tests, and see how the different styles and fabrics fit, wash and wear. I can already imagine how several of the tops would go with many of the skirts I’ve made.

So, watch this space for hand-dyed t-shirts with added embroidery, lots of pockets and other pretty things!

The Moon and the Hare

The Moon and the Hare

If you’ve been reading this blog for a very long time, you might recognise The Moon and the Hare. One of the first posts I wrote was about a t-shirt alteration featuring this print. I actually bought the t-shirt back in 2000 or 2001, the first time my paths crossed with the clog dancers. They were having an all-day event, and I had a stall selling velvet waistcoats and silver jewellery. I think I bought more than I sold that day, including this t-shirt.

I bought it from Hedingham Fair, rather optimistically in a children’s size, and when I eventually outgrew it I was rather upset. So I was really pleased to run across their stall at Chippenham, and find a t-shirt with the same print! This time I bought it in a men’s XXL, and spent a rainy Bank Holiday transforming it into a little tunic dress.

I started by removing the neckband and sleeves, and separating the shoulder seams. I then used an existing t-shirt to trace a new shape for the shoulders, armholes and neck. I used the old baggy sleeves to make new fitted ones, but thanks to a slight lapse in concentration I managed to sew the first one into place inside out. Using the overlocker. Oops. If I’d unpicked it the edges would have been a mess, and if I’d cut it out the sleeve would have been too small to go back in again… so I made an executive decision to go without sleeves. I copied another t-shirt and finished off the armhole and neck edges by simply turning the edges to the outside, stitching them in place, and letting them curl. I liked this effect, so I chopped off the original hem of the t-shirt and stretched it out until that curled too.

So there you have it – a new t-shirt becomes a new dress. Simple!