T-shirt Attempt...Part 2

Yesterday I begin to share my attempt at decorating a shirt for THE HUNGER GAMES viewing. Here's the rest of the story:

I had to sub on Friday, but I spent my lunch break cutting my image transfers. I don’t know why this is, but dark image transfer paper isn’t dark. It’s white. And when you iron it on to your dark garment (which is presumably black) the white doesn’t go away. It just stays. I didn’t want a solid white block on my shirt so I cut as close to the letters as possible. It surprisingly didn’t take too long and I was finished before the bell rang. I started thinking that maybe the worst was behind me and that was going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

My cut-out quote

A close-up on the letters.

Once home I set up my work space which included clearing off my craft desk (yeah I’m that nerdy and committed—I have a craft DESK) and setting up my iron. I pre-washed my shirt and ironed it (as per the directions) and then I read and reread the directions again. I knew this really was it. If I screwed this part up I was done. Finally I told myself, “I’m a college graduate. I can do this.” Famous last words, right?

The first step in iron transfers is to peel the backing off. This leaves you with a flimsy plastic transfer that is going to magically adhere to your clothing. I was really nervous that I would accidently rip my transfer but it actually peeled off just fine although getting the backing off to begin with was a bit tedious.

Next is the careful ironing procedure. The package came with parchment paper but I didn’t realize that’s what it was until later. So I grabbed a role of real parchment paper from my kitchen (it turns out that may have been the best thing to do). Once I placed that over my picture I started ironing using LIGHT pressure (it’s in all caps on the packaging too). You do that about 5 times and then repeat using firm pressure. Let cool for two minutes, peel off the parchment paper and you’re done.

Believe it or not, I was 100% successful at this point! I was amazed that my transfer had adhered to the shirt, it didn’t look weird AND I was satisfied with it!! Now because I like to be “artsy” (remember I carefully cut out stencils almost letter by letter) I had decided it would be cool to have the first half of the quote on the front of my shirt and the rest of the quote on the back. Once my shirt had cooled a bit, I flipped it over and put a pillow case inside. I don’t know if the process of heating another transfer onto the back would have any effect on the front but I wasn’t taking ANY chances.

Then I carefully lined up my transfers on the back of my shirt. And I mean that—I had a ruler out and everything to be sure they were centered properly and set high enough on the shirt. I even got another shirt out (with a screen-print) to compare the approximate placement.

After such a successful first attempt, I confidently begin ironing on the back. Five passes with LIGHT pressure, five passes with FIRM pressure, 20 seconds each. I was going to finish before I needed to leave. Life is grand! I noticed toward the end that it seemed like my transfers might be melting a bit on the edges. I thought maybe I just ironed a bit too hard but oh well it still looked fine, right?? I waited two minutes, peeled back the parchment paper, only to discover that I FORGOT TO PEEL OFF THE BACKING.           

I had literally just ironed my transfer to itself and the reason it looked a bit melted was the glue was starting to ooze out.

**pause for slight freakout**

Shall I remind you that I’d already used up ALL my transfer paper thanks to my stupid ink fiasco? I had no backup plan. I had a shirt with half a quote and a  growing headache. For some reason I thought that maybe the transfer would still work IF I could still get the backing off. It was stuck pretty good but I did get it off. And miracles of all miracles the transfer still worked and I was able to iron it to the back of my shirt.

Success!!

 What a relief. I had about five minutes to spare so I quickly put my new shirt on and headed to the theater.

I have many, many thoughts on the movie but I’ll suffice to say that I absolutely loved it!!!