A T-Shirt for Father’s Day

The HTV vinyl has arrived, so it is crafting time! With Father’s Day being tomorrow, I decided to create a t-shirt for my spouse as a gift.  I browsed Cricut Design Space for a suitable template. I chose a design (shown below) that aligns with his interest of fishing, making this logo an ideal match for him. I followed this blog post to help guide my project, How To Use Heat Transfer Vinyl With A Cricut Machine: A Step By Step Guide – Practically Functional.

With this project, I will be learning a new step by using a heat press to fasten the design onto a t-shirt. Before I can do this, I needed to research the appropriate temperature and duration for pressing the vinyl onto the fabric. I found this video on Youtube to be helpful, How to use a Heat Press I also discovered that the time and temperature differ for each project depending on the type of material you are using. The Cricut website has a heat guide where you can input the type of vinyl and material you are using and it will tell you what time and temp is needed for the heat press.

Feeling confident that I can use the heat press now, I returned to design space to start the project. I loaded the image I chose and adjusted the measurement of the design to fit the t-shirt I had. Once I was satisfied with the size of the picture I moved on to the next step of cutting the right size of HTV vinyl and placed it onto the Cricut standard size cutting mat. With this project, I remembered that I would have to mirror the image so I clicked the little button on the side that said”mirror” in order to flip my design. I also recalled from last time that I forgot to change the cutting settings so this time, I made sure it was on the vinyl cut setting before I pressed “make it” in the design space. Shown in the pictures below is the process of cutting and weeding the design.

Next, it was time to prep the t-shirt. I lint rolled the shirt to get any extra fuzz and debris off. Then, I placed it into the preheated heat press and gave it a quick 4 second press to take out any moisture and wrinkles before putting on the logo. Once the shirt was de-wrinkled, I placed the vinyl logo and carrier sheet onto the shirt. I closed the press and locked the handle in place for 15 seconds allowing the vinyl time to transfer onto the shirt. When the time was up, I lifted the handle and VOILA I did it! I made my very first t-shirt using the Cricut machine, HTV vinyl, and the heat press. I am excited to gift my first t-shirt project to spouse.

Shown in the video below is the video of me pressing the shirt in the heat press.

Here is a picture of the final product.

Reflecting on my experience: I have learned from videos along the way, that when working with a HTV (heat transfer) vinyl it is either a cold peel or a hot peel. This means that after you are done pressing the logo, you either peel it right after you press and it is still hot or you wait for it to cool before you peel the sheet off. The HTV vinyl I recieved had no instructions on what type of peel it was or what temperature I should be pressing it at. When I tried to find answers online there was nothing to be found on this product. Therefore, I took a guess and decided I would cold peel it. When I attempted to peel the carrier sheet, it was stuck and was tricky to pull off. Next time I create a design, I will hot peel it and see if it makes any difference. The other troubleshooting for this could be that I either didnt press it for the appropriate amount of time.  Either way, I hope to troubleshoot this for next time to make it an easier process for myself.  Overall, I am thrilled with the end product!