The Shirt That Sold - Creativity, sustainability, and starting with what you already have

A couple of weeks after I listed it, my phone lit up with an Etsy sale notification.

The flannel shirt sold!!

I stood there for a second just staring at the screen. Then I jumped up and down while yelling up the stairs, “B! Do you remember that flannel shirt I bleached? It sold. It sold!”

I’ve had plenty of sales over the years. I sell boutique craft supplies that I believe in deeply. I love the tools I offer and trust what they can do. But this felt different. This was something I made. Something that almost didn’t exist at all.

The Freedom of a Discarded Shirt

That flannel, the one that had just sold, had already been written off. It was in B’s giveaway stack, headed out of the house one way or another. If I ruined it, nothing was lost. And that came with freedom.

I’ve always had a hard time watching usable things get thrown away. I save Amazon boxes and packing material to ship paint. Glass jars are just waiting for new contents. Scratches in a piece of furniture feel like character to me. I see potential where other people see clutter. It’s part sustainability, part curiosity, and part personality flaw.

But when you’re moving across the country, you have to let a lot go. You don’t get to save the cool basket made of folded newspaper or the galvanized metal bucket with a bad paint job waiting to be redone. This shirt was one of the few items that had made it into the gotta go pile, but was rescued.

Which made it the perfect place to play.

The Experiments That Came Before

Before I ever touched the shirt that sold, one of the first flannels I worked on was deeply personal. It was the first flannel B ever gave me, back when we were dating. This flannel lived through the grunge era. B wore it when Kurt Cobain was still alive and singing back in the 90s. Because its condition reflected its past, it wasn't something that I brought out when I was looking for high fashion, but when I needed something cozy. That gave me freedom to play.

That shirt is mine. I altered it for myself. It taught me what was possible, but it was never for sale.

Another early experiment was a denim shirt from Walmart. Cheap. Low stakes. Perfect for learning. I used bleach and ink. In the past, with IOD Ink, I can get it to set using heat. Except this time, the ink wouldn’t set. I used heat—dryer, iron, everything you’re “supposed” to do—and it all washed out. I've decided it's the blended material and that cotton works best.

But, you know what? I still wear it. Bleached, imperfect, a record of learning instead of success.

Those shirts mattered because they taught me what the materials wanted to do—and what they didn’t.

Letting the Materials Decide

Bleach behaves differently on flannel than you expect. Blue doesn’t just fade—it turns pink. Gray turns warm, almost orange. The results are unpredictable, and that’s part of the appeal. On the shirt that sold, I added wing stencils across the back. I remember stepping back at one point and thinking, Oh… this is actually something.

Listing It Anyway

The shirt was a XXLT, from the big and tall department. I’m 5'1". Keeping it would’ve meant wearing it as a dress, which wasn’t a great plan. My Etsy shop is already set up and ready to go.

So I listed it.

I priced it at $58. Not as a mass-produced item, but as a one-of-a-kind, wearable art piece. I didn’t expect much. It felt like a test. A twenty cent experiment.

A couple of weeks later, it sold.

Why This Sale Felt Different

Selling something I made—from a shirt that was almost donated—hit differently. It felt validating, creatively and financially. More than that, it reminded me not to decide ahead of time how other people will see my work. It costs very little to try. Sometimes the only thing standing between a finished piece and a sale is the willingness to list it.

Why Sustainability Keeps Showing Up Here

Saving things from the landfill has always mattered to me. In packaging, in projects, in our lives. But this experience reminded me that sustainability isn’t just about what we save, it’s about what we’re willing to imagine.

Not everything needs to be new. Not everything needs to be perfect. Sometimes the most interesting work comes from things we’ve already decided we can lose.

And that feels worth paying attention to.

 

P.S. If you’d like to experiment yourself, I’ll share more of the process separately. For now, these are the supplies I used:

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