Welcome! A dear friend suggested I begin blogging again for my business (some of you long time fans may recall when I used to blog for Sunday Afternoon Housewife years ago) and I while I know she is right, I was struggling with where to begin or what to write about. Then, not when I was working, but when I was folding laundry, it struck me and I knew where to start this new blog.
If you aren’t familiar with my business yet, I wanted to give you some back story first. Sunday Afternoon Housewife is a woman-owned design and screen printing company located in Indianapolis, Indiana. All of the designs I sell are created by myself or in collaboration with other artists. Most of the artists I collaborate with are other women, but I have worked with a variety of people over the years. All my shirts are printed by hand here in Indianapolis. I do the majority of the printing myself, and I also work with one other high-quality print shop. I started this business myself in 2009 and I am self-taught when it comes to both design and screen printing.
One of the challenges I face as small printing operation is keeping shirts in stock and ready to ship. New designs require screens to be made and tested and I am very vigorous about my quality control. I have a seconds sale each year and I have lots of people tell me they don’t even see what’s wrong with the shirt or don’t notice a mistake which seems so obvious to me, but I do my best to make sure my shirts are of the best quality in both fabric and in printing. The reason I mention that I must keep all shirts stocked is because I am not the type of company that prints one off shirts or shirts on demand. Everything is designed with the intention to sell a large quantity of the shirts.
The majority of my shirts are printed on Bella and Canvas brand tees. These are the gold standard for new tee shirts these days. These are the shirts you want to wear, not the cheap kind of fundraiser shirt you turn into a rag or give away before it even wears out. These quality shirts are printed mostly with water based inks or other inks that have a soft hand feel. “Soft hand feel” is lingo for inks that aren’t stiff and scratchy though the inside of the shirt. The inks move freely, fold easily and do not crack or peel. Over a very extended period of time the inks will begin to fade, but they do not crack or flake of off the shirt. And that fact is exactly what inspired me to write today.
I know you probably have seen advertisements for tee shirts on social media. I won’t name any specific company names, but most are not locally owned small businesses who give you a direct line to the person printing the shirt, and I can promise they do not care about quality. When you get spammed by shirt advertisements, the images you see online might look bold, bright or beautiful, but it often does not last. The first thing you find if you order a cheap tee shirt from a faceless company is that the shirt may not feel soft or fit well or even fit terribly. Also, sizing may not be consistent. Even if your shirt fits and you decide to wear it, you might notice the ink feels stiff. After the first wash you might notice cracks. After a few months the ink may start coming off the tee and THIS was my AHA moment to share with you!
So, for Christmas I caved and ordered my husband a shirt off of Facebook from a company that honestly looked too good to be true. The design was great and I knew he would love the message. I tried to do some digging and from what I could tell the quality of the shirt would be good so I hope the printing would be also. Well, you be the judge:
For the record this is NOT ONE OF MY SHIRTS. This is a shirt ordered from a nameless company off the internet in a moment of weakness.
I am hope you can see what I am talking about. The shirt pictured above was purchased from an internet company in December and so it has only been worn for 3 1/2 months. The ink is so cracked and peeling off that in a few more months it will be in the rag pile. Now, let me show you a few of my shirts:
Of the three shirts above, the 46201 tee and Indiana State Parks tee are well over two years old. The writing center tee is even older. You’ll notice no cracking, no peeling, and hardly any fading. I don’t do anything special for washing my shirts. Everything goes in the washer and dryer. Sunday Afternoon Housewife shirts also don’t shrink, the ink feels soft and take years to fade.
As a favor, if you ever see a shirt online, especially in a pop up advertisement, that you’d like to buy, feel free to email me a screen shot or send me the link. I’ll tell you right away if you can expect good or bad quality on that purchase!
I am very curious if you have ever had the experiences I described above with a cheaply purchased (or sometimes not even cheap- as the shirt I purchased for my husband cost more than any of my tee shirts!) or online purchased tee shirts? Please share your experience, good or bad in the comments.