In this episode of Thread Notes TV I take you to the park (because it’s practically criminal to sit at home when it’s nice outside here) and tell you a little bit about a sweet t-shirt Patrick from Tilteed sent me. There are a lot of things that set Tilteed apart from other t-shirt design competition, so they’re definitely worth a look.

In this episode

Jungle Book – Tilteed (t-shirt details) – Price: $18

This intricate design from Tilteed delivers a classic 1-2 punch: it stuns you first with its attention to detail and the delicate lines on the book pages then knocks you out when you realize there’s really nothing random about it and the message is quite focused and clear.

It comes across like an illustration you’d expect to see on an old British children’s book, Danny or Christopher Robin perhaps?

It just really makes me think of all those times we had to read a book in school as child. I didn’t want to do it at first because it wasn’t a book that I picked out, but after a while I realize it’s a good story and there’s a reason the teacher picked that book.

Soon enough I’m engrossed in the story and don’t want to put it down. The imagination is in full gear and I’m filling in details and backstory on my own. Then, just as you’re knee-deep in it, somebody taps me on the shoulder and it’s like being startled out of a dream. All that smoke and color goes back into the page and you’ll left with just a bunch of words on a bunch of pieces of paper. It’s about that time that there can be a brief moment where you realize the imagination’s power to turn something so literal and concrete into such a vivid and vibrant experience.

Leave a comment down below and let me know what you think! If you’d like your t-shirt featured in a future episode of Thread Notes TV, check out my submit a t-shirt page.

Thanks again to Patrick at Tilteed for sending over Jungle Book and being so patient while the review was edited and put online. Zip over there and check out their latest designs.

So here’s a story of a t-shirt hunt with an almost-perfect ending. The other day I got an email from Liz, check this out:

Hello!
Stumbled across your blog, loved it, realized I had found a shirt a week ago that I loved but, unfortunately, it was too small (I was thrift-store hopping, they only had one). So I was wondering if you couldn’t hunt it down seeing as you seem to enjoy that sort of thing.

I looked for it online because the brand of the shirt itself was on the tag but it turned out that someone had simply silk screened it after buying plain shirts in bulk from that company.

Anyways, the shirt was black and it had an outline of Texas on it with the words, “Let’s Mess With Texas” written over top. It was pretty funny at the time.

Thanks in advance if you can find it. If you can’t, no worries, just thought I’d give it a shot.

Liz

This sounded like a tall order simply because of the sheer number of items you can buy with “Don’t Mess With Texas” plastered all over them. I also wanted to weed out as many print on demand (POD) items as possible, since Liz indicated in her email that the had been silk-screened by someone.

I got lucky, and I think I found the shirt:

Hopefully that’s the shirt you were talking about, Liz. I found it on Storyville Times, from a post dated Oct 1, 2007. The post tells me that the shirt was designed by a group called “Metro Three.” Some Googling brought me what looks to be their homepage and Twitter account:

Metro Three Homepage

Metro Three Twitter

I half-expect a tumbleweed to roll across that Twitter profile, it’s been deserted for so long. Nevertheless, Metro Three seems to be active, though that shirt doesn’t appear to be for sale right now. I’m thinking your best bet, Liz, is to contact them and see if they can’t make one appear in your mailbox one way or another.

If they can’t, here are some alternatives:

That’s Mess With Texas from Threadless, currently sold out but you can request an email notification for a reprint.

Here’s "Please Mess With Texas" from Protoculture Apparel. It’s a bit pricy IMO for the amount of print that’s on it, but it’s available in blue and green.

I also found this one on Cotton Factory, "I Messed With Texas." This one’s more reasonably priced at $16.

Hopefully you found something here you can run with with, Liz! Thanks for shooting me a message about this shirt you’re looking for. If anyone else has a shirt they’d like to see, hit the submit button up there on the right and let me know about it!

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Sometimes I’ll be lounging around the house and I realize a run to the store is in order. Nothing major, just a quick trip. That may or may not be a beer run. Right. So I take off the old t-shirt I was wearing around the house and toss on something a little more respectable to run to the store in.

I’m back to the house in 20 minutes, what happens to the t-shirt? Do I put it in the laundry? Do I hang it back up? I mean, I wore it for less than a half hour. This t-shirt is suddenly in cotton limbo. What do you do? Almost invariably, the shirt will see a second run before it sees the laundry basket. It just doesn’t make sense to wash something that’s essentially clean.

This tee is perfect for those situations. It’s the simple, cheeky humor that Snorg Tees is known for. It’s printed single color on a grey shirt. If you look closely, you’ll see the recycle symbol is actually 3 t-shirts instead of arrow. Pretty clever!

Pick up “I Support Recycling” from Snorg Tees, $14.95 this week only

This sweet tee from VanRockn is one of the more impressive single-color prints I’ve seen in a while. The off-center print is a pretty neat design choice, and was the first think to catch my eye. Upon closer examination you see the man is wearing a gasmask but it’s a vague enough image that you can’t discern too much more than that.

I think it’s pretty cool how VanRockn can evoke so much mood with just a single color print and selective use of shadow. The t-shirt is available in army green, brown, and light yellow. It’s also a snug “vintage fit” so be sure to check out their size chart before ordering. Hats off to VanRockn for another cool design.

You can get Toxic from VanRockn Apparel for $18.

I actually live near a GM plant where you can find hundreds upon hundreds of these things in huge lots near the freeway. Being fresh off the assembly line, they’re obviously in much better shape than this one, but I think we all know this is where they’ll end up. Really though, when have you ever seen a movie where a criminal organization didn’t employ at least one creepy white van?

The official description says it all: “If there’s one thing I know from experience- it’s that windowless white cargo vans are always involved in crime; driven by child molesters, kidnappers, burglars, rapists, murderers, terrorists or shifty, illegal work crews. They’re always beaten to shit- have chains, straps or rope hanging out the back, and look like they’ve been pried open from the inside. Is that rust…or dried blood? I swear I don’t know why they still make them…..If they’d just stop making them, I bet crime would drop, like, 85% overnight.”

Creepy White Van is $16 from Lucky Threadz.