More Fun

When we featured Ginny (from Aunt GiGi’s Craft Corner) last month, she had been a very busy T-shirt transformer. Now I’d say she’s downright prolific.

Check out what she was up to in September! Some wine cozies (Stocked Up, project #32)…

A set of eight Coast to Coasters (project #33), showing some team allegiance to the Mount Mercy Mustangs…

The Running with Scissors table runner (project #36)!

And four cleverly stitched Time and a Placemats (project #31).

I’m suddenly feeling inadequate in the productivity levels! But Ginny is smart to plan ahead — these are all gifts for her friends. So start cutting and stitching, people — ’tis the season to give!

An alternative to the Beefy-T variety, Artist Dave Rittinger designed this “Zero Footprint Shirt: Leaf Series” from various leaves and glue. So environmentally sound (100% compostable, after all), perhaps a little drafty, and great for camouflaging oneself in a forest or park. The layering of the leaves is positively feathery, achieving a birdlike effect. Click through to the series to see the feathers get ruffled in autumn!

Remember this Tree-shirt, made on a slightly smaller scale?

…of a copy of the 2011 Doodle: A Chalkboard Calendar as featured in the video online right here on Generation T is:

Congratulations to Veronica Suarez, who plans to doodle a scarab beetle Journey logo for the totally doodle-icious “Design Your Favorite T-shirt” prompt in August.

Psst! Don’t forget to enter the Chalkboard Calendar Giveaway before the witching hour tonight! Winner announced tomorrow!

So, I rarely share much of what goes on at my day job (needless to say, T-shirt refashioning doesn’t pay all the bills!), but when I get to work on a project that’s whimsical, clever, and vaguely T-shirt related, I can’t resist. Cue Doodle: A Chalkboard Calendar. It’s chalkboard-meets-calendar doodling fun with a new scene to embellish each month. In January, it’s a scene of a deserted city with the prompt: Make this city come alive. In April, an outline of a bulging bicep with the creative order: Give this guy a tattoo. And so on. You can only imagine that I was a wee bit biased when I was selected to be on the jury that decided which calendar spread would be featured in this little video! Meet the August calendar pinup, what else but Design your favorite T-shirt.

Fun, no? So, in celebration of the calendar’s first year (2011), Workman has offered me one calendar to give away to one of you lucky reader/doodlers. All you have to do is leave a note in the comments sharing the classic T-shirt you would doodle on this calendar page — Ernie and Bert’s stripes? the Rolling Stones’ lips and tongue? your favorite baseball team jersey?

Leave your doodling brainstorm in the comments section on the blog or on the Facebook page by the end of the day Sunday (October 31st–it’ll be a Trick or Treat prize!), and we’ll select a winner at random and make the announcement on Monday.

I’ve always lived by the adage “make T-shirts, not war” — in fact, a friend once designed a T-shirt for me with that very sentiment ironed onto the front. (Yes, she ran out of “e”s in the cursive blue fuzzy letters — I think it gives it character!) I took it on the road with me during my first book tour.

BUT, a war like this T-shirt battle waged by Rhett and Link is a different story–so creative and artfully done! Perhaps you’ve seen it:

Behind the scenes: Per their description, Rhett and Link changed shirts more than 100 times each, and took “individual pictures of each unique shirt. The designs on the shirts are not photoshopped. They are real shirts for each frame of animation.” Wow.

A short time ago, I came across Ginny’s blog over at Aunt GiGi’s Craft Corner, where she was stitching up a storm during during what she called “T-shirt extravaganza 2010.”

First up, an oven mitt, inspired by Up in My Grill, project #40 in Generation T: Beyond Fashion. I love the brown, pink, and blue color palate! Click here for a peek at the reverse side.

Next, an apron, inspired by Central Cooking, project #41, also from Generation T: Beyond Fashion. Though the apron design in the book is only one-sided (but double-layered), Ginny cleverly made hers reversible. Click here to see the other side!

Then, the “It Ain’t Me, Babe” babydoll dress (project #22 from Generation T: Beyond Fashion) to which she added contrasting patch pockets. (Thrifty note: Her husband paid 25 cents for the Google tee at a yard sale!)

Oh, and then there’s the “Plastic Surgery” grocery tote (project #42, from Generation T: Beyond Fashion). As you can see, Ginny’s been busy–she didn’t call it a T-shirt Extravaganza for nothing. (Also, love that she found an old-school Hypercolor T-shirt for this one!)

And lastly, the Pin-Up Girl halter top (project #1 from Generation T: Beyond Fashion), which she expertly finished with a gorgeous brooch.

Very unselfishly, Ginny made all of these projects as gifts for friends! So here’s your little reminder that those gift-giving holidays are slowly creeping closer, and there’s nothing like a gift of the handmade variety. (And, should you decide make a project from Generation T or Generation T: Beyond Fashion to show how much you care, don’t forget to print the free, downloadable gift tags located in the right column of your screen.) Happy making!

Lanora, from the Live to Ride, Love to Knit blog, briefly put down her trusty knitting needles this summer to make two cute designs from Generation T. Her mission: To escape the horrors of “boxy T-shirt syndrome” when she rode out to the famous motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota.

The first project she made is Boob Tube, project #36 found on page 98. For this one she used a colorful T-shirt from a local tattoo parlor.

The second, made from another tattoo parlor tee, is the ever-popular T-bird halter top, project #47 found on page 120. Boxy T-shirts, begone! Mission accomplished.

Reader Kelsey and the members of Iowa State University’s sustainability club, Closets Collide, sent us this cute photo of their group wearing refashioned T-shirt scarves–those are Loop-Tee-Loop scarves bookending a fringed Mane-iac scarf in the middle (projects #26 and #91 in Generation T: Beyond Fashion). On this particular day, these ladies were recruiting new members as they gear up for their next Closets Collide massive clothing swap event! If you’re in the Ames, Iowa area, it’s open to the community and will be held in the Sun Room at the MU on October 23rd, 2010! Think fall fashion, last-minute Halloween costume elements, and most definitely some T-shirts for your next refashioning session…oh how I wish teleportation was a viable transit option.

Are you involved in sustainable fashion on your school’s campus? Let us know!

Can you put on more than 25 shirts in 1 minute? Jamie Matter secured the record over at Universal Record Database on August 26, 2010. Can you beat it? No cheating! Head must be through neckbands, and arms must be through armholes!

Can you break it down and do 13 T-shirts in 30 seconds, like Alex Kirchner did on January 18, 2010?

Or can you top the record of 3 Brothers in a T-shirt (set on February 21, 2010)? The Kase brothers, Levi, Jesse, and Kobe, are the ones to beat.

Or how about tackling the Longest Exquisite Corpse Relay in which 9 people run and draw throughout a 900-meter relay race? The first runner goes 100 meters while drawing part of a person on his T-shirt. The shirt is then removed and transferred to the next relay team member, who puts it on and starts running the next 100 meters while adding to the first runner’s drawing. This continues, with each person running 100 meters, until the 900 meters — and the drawing — is complete!  Are you up for the cardio-creative challenge? The record was created and set on June 17, 2009 by Jessica Dunn, Lindsay Gerlach, Courtney Hacker, Flounder Lee, Paul Miller, Kurt Nettleton, Kyle Channing Smith, Victoria Son and Courtney Ware.

Or perhaps you’ve got a Guinness World Record in your sights: Record holder Matt McAllister wore an incredible (and heavy!) 155  T-shirts at once, and documented the results in the video below. Not sure if anyone’s challenged his record since, but keep us posted if you do!

Though unofficial and undocumented by video, we at Generation T like to think we hold the record for “Number of T-shirts Transformed in a Weekend” when we (with the help of many, many T-shirt fans) refashioned well over 300 T-shirts at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee in June 2006!

What T-shirt record would you dare attempt?