I was called an “internet weirdo” a couple of weeks ago. I liked that and joked that I’d use it as my job title on my next batch of business cards. The friend who coined the phrase seemed concerned that I might have taken offence and sought to reassure me by explaining that “you are definitely weird and the internet is one of many things you know lots about”.
To set his mind at rest, I decided that the next time I saw him I’d wear a t-shirt with the phrase on it. My first attempt was constructed with safety pins. I thought it looked great, but the problem was that when I started pushing the pins into the material the letters lost definition and the effect didn’t have the impact that I was aiming for.
A change of approach was required. I hatched a perfectionist plan to paint the phrase onto the t-shirt in bleach, wait a while, then wash the bleach out. The prospect bored me a little and I had too many other things to do. Remembering that the paint we’d used for the spare room the previous week had not washed out of my jeans, I headed for the shed.
Ten minutes later, it was done. The neck of that particular t-shirt had always been a little tight for me, so I hacked it down with a pair of scissors. Then I did the sleeves and base to match. I thought it looked pretty good. I showed it to another friend the following day. “It looks like something you’d get from a shop,” was his comment.
A day later, I turned up at the phrase-coiner’s house with a blank expression on my face. He smirked. “Cool t-shirt,” was the verdict, then the conversation immediately turned elsewhere. Later on, he too said it looked professionally made. I showed it to Mrs Hg the day afterwards and she, to my surprise, said exactly the same thing.
So, now I’m wondering whether clothing design should also be added to that ever-increasing list of many things I might know a little about. Would you buy one, or do you know someone who would? Mugs, mouse mats, postcards? Are my fantasies a little too fevered, or should I press into service the domain name that I’ve just bought?
I’m only joking, of course. Except maybe I’m not. I have no idea, anything seems possible at the moment.
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That is a cool tshirt and everything is possible at the moment. I like to spell wierd like that cos its wierder.
Thanks Paul. If you spell it that way, does that make you a writer of wrongs?
I love the safety-pin design – you could get that printed onto a t-shirt from a high-res digital image (lots of fast-print places on the high street are doing this from photos etc).
Go for the fevered fantasies!
The bleach one is cool too. Can’t see where you hacked away at the neck?
Thanks Natalie. Yeah, now isn’t the time to be looking into all this stuff but I might try to think/do more about it next week. One option would be to use an online service like Cafe Press. Another possibility, if I wanted to keep it fairly low-key and hand-made, would be to use some kind of spray paint… put the pins on the fabric, spray, let it dry, then shake them off. More labour-intensive, but also more bespoke and one-off. Must try to do one, at least, for myself.
You can probably see the hacking better if you click through the photo to one of the bigger versions on Flickr. Essentially I chopped about half a centimetre down into the fabric of the neck, then followed it all the way round in a circle. Makes the t-shirt fit me better and also scruffs it up a bit in line with the painted words.
Also in the latter week of June, on a trip to New Mexico with my wife, I was to meet up with an old friend and a friend of his. We ended up missing his friend, as she had some projects to catch up on. I later found out that she had no such work, but rather had been intimidated about meeting me because she thought I was, confided my friend to me, an “internet weirdo.” If not for his confidence, I’d send her a thank-you note.
If not for my complete lack of action on the self-merchandising front, I’d send you a t-shirt. At the moment it feels like a cute idea whose time has passed, but who knows what might happen in a month or two if I’m looking for a Project With A Capital P.