Shirt Shop personalizes holidays

By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter

Register/Anne Kazmierczak Elizabeth Donnelly runs the 12-thread embroidery machine that can create elaborate designs at the Shirt Shop on Thursday afternoon.

If you’d like to make your Christmas a little more personal this year, you might consider custom embroidery, screen printing or applique from the Shirt Shop.
At the shop, which specializes in customizing T-shirts and apparel, you can have almost anything embroidered onto an article of clothing or household linen. People can bring in bath or households linens for monogramming, for example. Or you might want a favorite person’s name put on a T-shirt.
“I did embroidery on a quilt that was being passed down from a great-great grandmother,” owner Elizabeth Donnelly said. The family heirloom was embroidered with the name and birth date of the first great-great grandchild, along with the great-great grandmother’s name, Donnelly said. Donnelly was finishing up a Christmas stocking recently, too.
The Shirt Shop has a computerized, 12-color embroidery machine that can do elaborate or simple designs. Donnelly and her three-woman crew have a selection of 40,000 images to choose from, with between 200 and 300 colors of thread available to customize those selections. Whether you want a man on the moon, an owl in flight or butterflies on a rose, they can embroider it. More masculine selections include jumping bass, patriotic imagery and sports-themed icons. With the variety offered, the possibilities are endless.
While a personalized jacket or ball cap might be fun, the bulk of the Shirt Shop’s business is large orders.
“We can do one piece, or we can do 1,000,” Donnelly said of the range of jobs they take on.
“Screen printing is probably the main thing we do,” Donnelly said. That and corporate and athletic wear.
“We do customized logos,” for businesses, she said. “If they have a business card, we can try” to replicate that exact image. In addition, Donnelly said, “We do a lot of stuff for the schools, the college and rec programs in the summer.”
The screen printing is labor-intensive. “It’s a manual, six-color, six-station printer,” she said. “You have to do it all by hand.”
From cutting the screen to the actual printing, the process is slower than that of vinyl printing, which is done with a heat press.
A vinyl print job, say of the Iola Mustangs logo, can be done in a snap. The screen-print jobs, however, are a multi-step process and take two weeks from start to finish.
Screen printing is typically done on T-shirts, while athletic wear can have vinyl names and numbers pressed on.
Vinyl images can be customized as well, Donnelly said. “I’ve scanned a guy’s tattoo and made shirts from it,” she said.
“We have digitizing capabilities where we take an image ... and assign stitches to it,” she said, allowing anyone to bring in any drawing to be embroidered, as well.
As for shirts, there’s a rainbow of those to choose from as well. “We can get any color of shirt,” Donnelly said. “Just in one brand there’s over 60 colors of shirts.”
That’s not including the new styles, she said. Donnelly likes to keep up on what’s trendy. She maintains that edge by attending trade shows. “I just love the industry. I love the people.” She said some of the latest styles available at her store are tissue-thin shirts for layering, tie-dyes, slim fit T-shirts and more. “Right now the hoodies are the thing,” she said.
It’s not just apparel the shop customizes, either. They make large street and wall banners for events as well as aluminum sheeting signs that last years. The shop also personalizes medical uniforms and business polo and button down shirts. A stock of all are on hand to select from, with additional styles and colors available to order.
Donnelly is happy with her business, and her new location.
The store moved to its present location in the Shannon Building in August, she said, and it’s a great location.
“Since we’ve moved, we’ve been busy.”
“We have a lot of regulars, and have had some new people come in that have seen us here,” Donnelly said.
The best thing about the move, Donnelly said, is the increased working space.
“We used to have to clear off tables” when a large design order came in, Donnelly said. “Now we have a designated area for screen printing, a designated area for embroidery, a designated area for banners,” she said. They also have large display windows, a feature she admits is underutilized right now.
“I’ve had the business for eight years now,” Donnelly said. “There’s not been one day I haven’t had a job to do.”
“When school and ball season hits, there’s not enough hours in the day to get all the work done.”
Donnelly used to work for the company that manufactures the heat press she now uses, so the Shirt Shop was a natural fit. That she has expanded recently is a testimony to her business skills. That, and the fact she loves her job.
“I wake up every day and I like going to work,” she said.