Seattle is one of the few cities lucky enough to now have a Carhartt Store in its limits. Because of this, Wexley School for Girls and I were lucky enough for the opportunity to design a few t-shirts for this new store, one of which was picked to be given away during the Grand Opening held back on 3/22/12. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, they even invited me down to sign each and every shirt during the event.

It’s already quite an honor to work on and wrap your head around a great and historic brand like Carhartt as it is. But then for the opportunity be at the Grand Opening of only their fifth retail store, representing both the brand and myself as a local artist, was unbelievable. I still almost don’t believe it actually happened. Everyone who came through the door was directed toward a table with a big pile of black t-shirts, and me with a silver Sharpie in hand. And the coolest part was how happy everyone was about the shirt and to have my signature on it. I was sure people wouldn’t give two shits about me and my signature, but was I wrong. People were taking pictures of me, and with me. One with someone’s daughter holding up my shirt. Everyone had great things to say (a nice woman even complemented me on my dimples). People actually wanted me to sign it. And of the 120 total shirts, I’m positive I signed at least 116 of them (unfortunately a few people grabbed a shirt and immediately wandered off into the crowd).

Anyway, the experience was amazing to say the least, and I’m really happy with how the shirts turned out. And I hope everyone who received a shirt at the Grand Opening gets many happy years out of their new Carhartt Seattle shirts. You should also stop by to see the store in person. It’s beautifully decorated like an old logging camp, and the attention to detail is impeccable.

If you weren’t able to be there for the Grand Opening, here’s a quick video to encapsulate things a little. And in perfect Carhartt fashion, the ribbon cutting was replaced by a section of drywall that was busted up with sledgehammers by baseball legend Edgar Martinez and Carhartt CEO Mark Valade. And if you watch closely, you can even see me pop up a few times when the camera pans to the left during the ribbon cutting, and in the store signing the t-shirts.

Carhartt has their grand opening downtown Seattle and Danny Bonaduce welcomes them. Ribbon cutting is done by Edgar Martinez, Carhartt syle.

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A few years ago, a friend was telling me how foods like carrots and potatoes to can be carved out to make stamps for printing on clothes and stuff. And because of their density and other delicious vegetable qualities, they work surprisingly well. Then somewhere from this conversation, the idea come up to try the same thing but with bread. Which for printings sake, does not have the same qualities as carrots or potatoes. But we tried it anyway and I’m glad we did.

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Since then, I’ve made quite a few shirts and ruined a lot of possible sandwiches. Plus, since no two pieces of bread are exactly the same, each shirt is slightly different than the next. Perhaps one day bread will overtake snowflakes as the symbol for being unique.

If you’d like to make one for yourself, here’s what you’ll need:

01. A shirt
02. A loaf of bread (find a loaf with a nice iconic bread shape. You’d be surprised at how much bread isn’t baked this way)
03. Fabric paint
04. Paint brush
05. A human torso