OhJoySexToy

The Life Cycle of a Cheese Shirt (EMBROIDERY POST)

Added 2021-08-27 22:02:30 +0000 UTC

A million years ago in 2008, I bought Lucy Knisley's cheese shirt, which she kindly custom-tailored for me by cutting off the sleeves and bringing in the silhouette to give it a sleeker fit.

(Oh man, looking at the background of those pictures: I still have some of those art prints up on my wall today <:)

I wore the fuck out of this shirt. I wore it around Portland. I wore it on this Stumptown Comics Fest panel with Lucy in 2009. I wore this dang shirt till it was threadbare and even a heavy duty washing couldn't un-stiffen the under-pits area. I wore it till it couldn't be worn no more.

But one simply does not throw out a Lucy Knisley cheese shirt simply because it is no longer wearable! What one does is save it for a decade or so in one's box of fabric and then one eventually learns to embroider and then one TURNS IT INTO DISPLAYABLE WALL ART.

So now you have it all embroidered, but... how to display the front half of a sleeveless t-shirt?

We begin where all the best adventures start:

Goodwill.
(For my international patrons: This is a nonprofit secondhand shop franchise that helps train and find employment for folks needing work, in addition to other stuff. But mostly it's a treasure trove of discount-priced clothing and objects that need a new home. Objects like.... PICTURE FRAMES.)

I'm pretty sure I got this framed 3D plastic-relief coffee illustration for $3? Definitely under $5, for sure.

With a blade, some pliers, and sheer brute strength, I pried it apart and only broke the glass a little. ...actually a lot. But it was, like, super thin and brittle!!!!

Then I cut out a thick piece of foam board to mount the shirt on and sew up the back so the fabric would stay taut.

After I hammered back in some of the metal clippy bits to help keep the shirt-wrapped-foam-board from falling out the back, I turned it around and...

Ta-da!

Like I said, I did break the glass, but I was planning on removing it anyway because the whole point of embroidering something is to have it be touched. Please! Run your fingers over my stitches!! Feel all those funky textures! Can't do that through a piece'a glass.

The frame has this nice light brown/golden splotchy coloring on it which doesn't photograph well but adds a nice softness to the darker brown and complements the gentle, organic line work of Lucy's art and handwriting (At least, I think it does).

There we are! Framed and hung! The cheese shirt lives on! ...Actually, the cheese shirt lives on elsewhere as well, as Lucy revamped it herself and is selling it on Society6 so you can get your very own, whether to wear or embroider upon, whichever!