But really I mean all sorts of difficulties. Did you really think that two designs in a row was a return to form? That I would manage a third? I did, for a while there. One can always hope. If you’re willing to hold on, I’m willing to keep trying.
More soon. I promise.
And more news about more soon.
Exclaim
design run of
05/19/2009 through 05/30/2009
I went with my gut on this one, and when my gut started screaming in a classic word bubble, and did so with glow thread, I was powerless to embroider otherwise.
Glow thread on black is the default for mens/unisex Hanes Beefy T’s or on ladies cut Gildans. If you’re itching for another color, let me know and we can arrange. Also offering the Artist Choice Upgrade again. If you missed it last time with the skull design, let me explain again in brief: I will devote extra time embellishing your shirt with further ‘work’ which is based around the original design.
Always interesting to see what I’ll come up with next if given the nudge. With cash.
I imagine the skexis screaming the title to this post, and it pleases me. It seems this trial, this gauntlet I have thrown at myself, will not rest, no matter what I seem to think or pretend.
The population of my home recently increased by one (and if you missed the sequence of birth twitters and photos, then you indeed, missed) and I am still operating under the plan to do this shirt thing. I hope that everyone I’ve come to hold dear is still up for my usual slow delivery and antics, as I mess around in this internet shirtailer experience.
In the spirit of messing around I found another feature on the ’so expensive I will be paying off for eons to come’ sewing machine. It can do continuous lettering stitching! Interesting! It also can do little animals?? On this shirt the little pigs could be anything from pigs to rats but on a sturdier fabric this might turn out…most promising…
Random No Look
UPDATE: Sorry, they’re all gone!
I have a full bin of completed shirts from the past three or more years that don’t have a home. They vary greatly, and most were one-offs never featured on Tiny Run. So for a little while, I’d like to offer up a randomized selection of things you don’t get to see before you buy. There are simply too many to try to photograph individually and I need to make some room in my shrinking closet spaces. All shirts are unworn works: batik, embroidery and screen prints. Some designs will appear new to you, some familiar, some offensive, some wonderful, some not so wonderful.
So for these remainders, I offer up special no-look pricing, where you have a minimal fee plus shipping and get something random in your size. The first people to order get the cooler ones of any particular size. If I don’t have your size I will send an approximate match, or refund your payment. I will check my ‘records’ to make sure I don’t send you a duplicate Tiny Run design. Please limit one shirt per order; let’s all share fair. No returns on these, they are yours forever. And since shirts are already completed, these should ship out immediately.
Nothing yet. I’m late. Something soon. Business as usual.
On a long enough time line, I do complete what I set out to do. The second round of bacon shirts arrived with sufficient aplomb on me late last week. And so I began the post processing of tagging and cutting and ironing the ‘protective’ backing on the inside of each shirt. Then the packing, labeling and shipping. The bread and butter of the independent internet shirtailer. Time consuming bread and butter, but ah well.
I gotta admit, Tiny Run is still exciting and interesting, challenging and difficult. And sometimes, a little too much on that difficult quality. The second bacon coming contained as many trials as the first (and finally shipped out the last today). My expletives flowed in the same river-like manner. The promises to myself to never repeat that again had the same sickly sweet kiss. The thought of just making shirts that no-one would ever order or charging ridiculous amounts to achieve that same result pokes me with its pitchfork and goads with freedom from all these concerns without actually having to make the decision to abandon ship.
Of all these knocks on my door the one I let in was the most innocuous. Of course. I let in The Quilt. It was the only one that offered comfort, by way of playing into the slow piecemeal production method, and was an item locked into being not able to mass produce. If I was going to do a bacon quilt, it would take me six months and there would be only one Bacon Quilt, and all others are impostors. If you meet the Bacon Quilt on the road, kill him?
The impetus, or one of them, for Tiny Run was that there were things that I didn’t see in the ever spawning internet shirt market. I wanted to see them. And I was curious if anyone else wanted to see them, too.
But the business is brutal. My production methods and business acumen are less than full grown, and that is a kind way of putting it. Really, I suck at this. And not only do I not want to ever see another internet shirt site to confirm that no one is doing anything that I perceive as truly awesome, I start to wonder if I really need to see these things through myself. My own pursuit of what I consider awesome is coming under question, as well as my success at achieving awesome so far.
And in between the rigors of the business and the promise of a baby soon arriving, I have been swaddling my brain in quilts.
So for the last three months or so, I have been thinking about the canvas that a quilt might function as. It’s a neat diversion, to say the least. The pictures in my head are the most delicious kind. I’ve stockpiled about six or seven ideas and fabric to do at least three of them. And like shirts, I find great technical excellence in many quilters online, but little of the spark that interests me.
So what does this mean? I haven’t really developed my thinking too far beyond today. I’m looking at my life facing the largest change in a matter of weeks. I don’t know what will happen. I’d like to think that the Tiny Run I’ve built and you’ve followed will weather this storm and shirts of some interesting sort will continue to grace your eyes and torsos.
Maybe we will see some onesies.
