​We are starting our first day without our graphic artist, Steve Deland, who is taking a well-deserved vacation along the Oregon Coast. Steve has over 35 years of experience and is our foundation for creating incredible artwork for our customers. Walking into work this Monday morning, I felt helpless, like our company would crash and burn this week without an artist. The stress of customers calling asking about t-shirt artwork and needing it done quickly is a nightmare. We don't have anybody to replace Steve, so I am looking for a local artist to step in and help us on this week's art projects. I will take retired, current, and even kid artists so we can keep our business printing t-shirts. 

​Ali, our shipping and receiving clerk, has a 5-year-old daughter named Selena, a talented youngster in the artwork world who will be assisting us.  ​Little Giggles Daycare in Edgewood, WA, taught Selena graphic artwork using fingerpainting and crayons with which she created her graduation shirts.  

Factory Friday Fun Video
It's a summer Friday at Northwest Custom Apparel, and we are filled to capacity with t-shirts, caps, and embroidered vests today. I decided to get out my GoPro and make a quick, fun video that flies through the factory, showing what we are doing today. In the first clip, Brian and Joe are printing t-shirts with our Kornit direct-to-garment printer. Brian says, "We are full to capacity, so stop selling orders!" Don't worry; they will be working overtime to put some extra money in their wallets. We really appreciate Brian and Joe for keeping the printers pumping out t-shirts. We do a GoPro fly by the t-shirts and sweatshirts the guys printed today. 
Stitching Caps
Nai in our cap department is stitching some trucker caps with an Alaskan Lodge in a scarlet and snow-white thread. This trucker cap is one of our more popular caps, and Nai loves to embroider them. 

Seattle Children's Hospital Embroidery
Theavy, our embroidery operator showing off an embroidered vest for the Seattle Children's Hospital. This is the same hospital Russell Wilson visited each Monday before being traded to the Denver Broncos. 
I wanted to use my selfie stick to get a birds' eye view of the staff loading a new embroidery design into the computer. Our 8-head Tajima embroidery machine runs the Seattle Children's Hospital job that ordered 100 fleece pullovers and jackets for their nursing staff. My wife is a nurse and loves her pullovers from Cutter and Buck. 

Thank you to our Awesome Staff
Antonio and Alicia are folding and preparing the completed shirts for shipment or customer pickup. Antonio has been a great help since he started last month. The kid's banner at the end of the video is from Little Giggles Daycare in Edgewood. If you remember, in our other Facebook videos of the daycare and the graduation t-shirts. This is the daycare we helped out with. 

It's late Friday afternoon and about an hour before I head home, so I need to cut this blog short and start shutting up shop to enjoy a warm and sunny weekend. 

See you guys next week, Erik

Kanha is an embroidery machine operator at Northwest Custom Apparel. June is her birthday month and the staff, customers and the community would like to wish Kanha a "Happy Birthday".  We don't reveal a person's age however we do post some events that happened in Kanha's birth year.