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So guess what I did today?

Today I was in the shop of Kelly Robbins who does screen printing and embroidery. Kelly, his wife and parents have been running Robbins Apparel since 1997, with Kelly working full-time for the last five years. As you can see, it is a small shop that requires a good amount of hand work. Today I was “catching” the garments after they were heated to cure the ink, which was a hot job!

Kelly starts with a poly material that he puts into a machine that places the art image onto it. I’m not really sure how it happens, but after spraying it with water the image becomes visible. This “screen” is now ready to be inserted into the print machine, which squeegees ink onto the garment.

In order to get the art to line up exactly with the zipper, Kelly thought like a woodworker. He put the image onto the carrier and then when he placed the hoodie onto the carrier he only had to unzip it a bit to see where the image was going to be placed.

And for the final very hot product…

Hooded sweatshirts are now live on the site. Get yours here.

— John

On Tuesday we will begin selling our first-ever sweatshirt: A 100-percent cotton American Apparel zip hooded sweatshirt that features a hand-drawn logo by artist Joshua Minnich. The sweatshirt will be available in small, medium, large, XL and 2XL. The cost will be $45.

Though this seems a small thing – selling a sweatshirt – this product represents almost seven weeks of work for John and me. I had the easy part – working with the artist on the logo. Since August, John has been trying to reconfigure our supply chain for apparel so it’s like our supply chain for our books.

John got us very close to the source and cut out several layers of people who do nothing but pass on expenses. As a result, this sweatshirt will be $45 – a very good price for a quality American-made sweatshirt – instead of $65.

It’s the same strategy we use to ensure our books are competitive.

With any luck, we will be able to lower prices on our hats and T-shirts in the near future, thanks to John’s diligent work.

I’m wearing one of the prototype sweatshirts right now. The logo is fantastic; I like the way the zipper passes right through the compass. And the sweatshirt is as soft as the thigh of emu.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I know these questions will come up: I’m afraid these are the only sizes available to us from the factory. And we are still not able to sell apparel internationally; we hope that day will come.

… “The History of Wood.” Coming soon: Accessories for your chamber pot.

Since the day we started selling books, readers have requested a sweatshirt with our logo. We have always demurred because we are a publishing company – not a clothing store.

But during our recent coffin-building party, our friends browbeat us until we agreed to produce a hooded, full-zip sweatshirt that was made in the United States with the Lost Art Press logo. (Note to self: Self, don’t drink beer around Raney Nelson because you become intellectually weak.) After a couple attempts at designing a logo worthy of a sweatshirt, I went to professional designer Joshua Minnich.

Joshua specializes in hand-lettered logos and has done some spectacular work for Texas Heritage Woodworks that I have been following on Instagram. Joshua developed two designs for us and, after a single tweak, we settled on the design above.

It will be featured on the front of the black sweatshirt with the zipper running through the middle of the logo (yes, I know, we never make things easy on ourselves).

John Hoffman is trying to get us a good price on the sweatshirts, but these should be ready to sell in the store in a few weeks. We will have pricing and details soon.

— Christopher Schwarz

We are in the last stages of developing the design for our first Lost Art Press sweatshirt and need to order the full-zip hooded sweatshirts for the screen-printing.

To make sure we don’t order the wrong mix of sizes, could you take this poll?

The sweatshirts will be black, American-made, with a full zipper up the front and a hood. If you ordered a sweatshirt, what size would you order?

I’m sorry to say these are the only sizes available to us in the brands we have selected, they do not offer 7XL or “Chipmunk.”

— Christopher Schwarz