Happy Birthmonth: Teextile is born!

Big Exciting Stuff this month, as it should be. March is a lot of things: my birth-month, for one. This year, though, I'm sharing the month with two exciting new Tee competitions. I have some personal features planned, and hopefully some themed content, but most importantly we want to get the new blood up and running with some promotion. For you designer types, it's worth checking them out and hitting up their respective FAQs.

Teextile is the first to start up, having released its first shirt today at midnight (Eastern Standard Time, for you checkers). They're kind enough to provide us a ticker so we can figure out print time for our own personal locations... stand-up blokes, them. Their first shirt is one I'm mixed on... Good Old Times by Fatmouse. The pros: it shows off their size capabilities, for starters, and it makes a very wearable brand tee... the pixelized feel and old-school gaming homage isn't something I'm gonna rush out and buy, but it would certainly be something that could find an audience willing to wear it. The coolest part is the color-selection: you could feasibly have Teextile print the one-color piece in any shade you preferred, making it totally custom. My biggest question mark, though, is this: I'm unsure who wants to sport a brand they don't even know if they love yet. Thankfully for Teextile, there seems to be plenty of reason for those few to want to keep on wearing it... I just feel it's going to be a slight financial disappointment, and a larger disappointment to future fans who will wish they'd taken that leap of faith.

Thankfully for the sales of shirt #1, Teextile has also released their entire week's lineup, and the lineup seems way strong enough for the brand to gain immediate fans. I think this is an excellent idea for the new company... instead of relying on people to check every day, it gives artists enough time to promote their upcoming shirt, fans the ability to plan to budget in their favorites, and the uninitiated will get to preview what's coming up and get excited, instead of perhaps missing out on a shirt for want of checking daily... seriously, who can remember all those crazy daily sites? I'm guessing we'll be seeing these previews post every weekend, as Teextile doesn't plan to sell anything those days.

What I'm most excited for is RecycledWax's "I Want To Dance Too," a longtime Contest Watch favorite and officially update #19. It will be printing Friday, giving you plenty of time to plan to snag one. And you really should. While I still hold true that I'm not entirely in love with the shot-glass son here, I do love the overall liquid feel of the colors and the blissful romance of the main characters. The kid dampens the romance, as they always do, but it's still a totally worthwhile purchase. Don't forget, $15 on Friday, because even if you win over at our big CW contest, it's rather unlikely I'll be able to snag one of these as a prize for ya... one day and all that.