When I started researching I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I looked up sweatshirt designs to get some ideas. I liked the idea of having words that were made into a shape. I also liked the idea of having a smiley face somewhere in the design (I didn't end up having this in the final design). I still wasn't sure of what I wanted the sweatshirt to say though. I didn't want something simple like "have a good day" or "good vibes", so I thought of putting something in French. My final idea was putting the phrase "can you read French" in French. And the words would be in the shape of a circle and in different colors and there would be a flower around the words.
Making the Design
This is the design I made on Adobe Illustrator. I picked out colors that were under the heat press and put them into the program to see what it would look like. I ended up choosing orange, blue, purple, and green (have to use four colors). I also reversed it so when I cut it could the design would be the right way when I put it onto my sweatshirt.
Heat Press
First I cut out the different colors on the vinyl machine. The only problem I had was that the cutting master program already reversed the design and since mine was reversed before it ended up making my design the right way when it cut out. I didn't realize this until I was almost done and I had to recut everything again. Once I got the pieces cut out I weeded them out with a pick and got them ready to press. I placed the orange petals down first on the sweatshirt. Then I placed the words from top to bottom. In between each layer of vinyl I put a sheet over the whole thing before pushing the heat press down so the vinyl didn't stick to the press.
Vinyl before weeding
Orange flower (little off center)
After weeding
Before pressing the third color
Pressing the last color
Using the sheet so vinyl doesn't stick to the top
Wearing the final sweatshirt
What I learned
Throughout this project I learned many things. One thing I learned was that if you start the heat press you should finish putting all the designs on before taking it off the press. I came in during contact time and didn't realize this and I was running short on time so I only put the orange flower petals on the shirt and took it off the press. I don't think it affected how my project came out but it wasn't how I was supposed to do it. When I put the words on I made sure to do them all before taking it off. A second thing I learned was that I need to check how the vinyl machine is going to cut out the pieces before cutting them. When I cut out my pieces the first time I didn't realize the design wasn't inverted anymore so I wasted a whole contact time since I had to wait for many people in front of me to cut their designs and then once I cut mine they were wrong. I also wasted the heat press vinyl since my parts were not able to be used. The second time I cut them out I made sure to save as much vinyl and also cut the pieces out reversed.