letter shirts
 

My boyfriend dosen't have any letters, and I was planning on making him some for christmas. I've called a few places looking for templates or patterns to trace the letters with backgrounds, but can't find any anywhere. I don't have the money to go to a place that makes the shirts, and I have the ability to sew my own.

Does anybody know where I can find the templates or patters or whatever to cut out the letters so they are all the same size and shape?

Did you check Jo-Ann Fabrics or Michael's? They used to have them.

i've called a jo-ann, but all they had were some iron on stuff that was on clearance. they didn't have anything with the backgrounds.

As an undergrad, I once used a set of letters on one of my sweatshirts to make "templates" of letters to sew on a scrapbook cover. It took me a long time (because I was trying to trace them exactly right) but it came out nice and everyone thought I bought a set of letters just for the scrapbook. You might be able to try this if you can borrow a set of his letters from someone(?)

Try the link posted in post #2:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=81517

As alum said, you need to enlarge the letters to 107 percent to make letters exactly four inches tall. Good luck!

Are you talking about one of those gaudy lettered Tshirts? You actually want your boyfriend to wear one of those?
Buy him some RL and Brooks Brothers.
People should know that you're in a fraternity because of the way you act and conduct yourself, lettered shirts are unneeded.

www.localsororities.org

Click on "resources"
They have letter stencils for every letter of the Greek alphabet there.

Lettered shirts were and still are popular on my campus and they show pride in your organization. Nothing gaudy about that. I think your comment was "unneeded."

Do you say those things because FIJIs aren't allowed to wear actual Letters?

I'm in a southern arkansas school. I don't have the money to afford RL or Brooks Brothers. And lettered shirts are VERY popular on my campus. He is one of the few people in his fraternity that dosen't have a letter shirt. neither does his little brother cuz he can't afford them.

If letters are popular on your campus, then I think it's a great gift idea. I always love getting letters, even as an alum. Heck, I wore 'em on Saturday (they even have "Alumna" stiched below the letters). I can completely understand not being able to afford them, as they can get pretty pricey, especially the hoodies. Unfortunately, I've never made any cuz I'm not that crafty, so I just scour e-bay :p

And yeah, maybe that guy said that since they don't wear letters at all since they're FIJI. Good call rufio. And if she can't afford to buy letters, then she sure won't be buying any Ralph Lauren or Brooks Brothers. The labels on your clothes shouldn't define you as a fraternity man EITHER. That's kind of the point of letters, of any organizational t-shirt, is to show your membership in that org and the fact that you're wearing it across your chest shows your pride. I don't wear Ann Taylor because I want to show I'm a sorority snob, I wear it because I like the styles, the clothes don't make me a sorority woman.

It has nothing to do w/ Fijis not being able to wear letters - his chapter doesn't even go by Fiji, they go by Phi Gam - it's that at some schools there's a sort of reverse snobbery about not wearing them, that it supposedly makes you look more "elite." Whatever.

Hmm. I see FIJIs (or Phi Gam or Phi Gamma Delta or whatever you want to call yourselves) wearing letter-shirts. They just say "FIJI" on them instead of the greek letters. But they are the regular, double-stitched with a background shirts.

Same at Penn State (when I was there), you'd see FIJI on sweatshirts and tshirts all over the place. I think what 33girl is saying is that campus to campus, certain houses may not wear letters for whatever reason they have, and on some campuses it's more campus-wide that wearing letters is "looked down on". When I was in school, Betas didn't wear letters on our campus. They said you would "just know a Beta" when you see him. I had a guy in several of my classes the last couple years, he finally wore something that identified him as a Beta right toward the end of spring semester senior year. Great guy but I never had any clue he was a Beta until that moment (and yes, I did tell him ;)).

i dont know where yall are shopping for lettered items, but ive never paid more than $30 for a hoodie. and around $20 for a lettered t-shirt.

is that "expensive?" i figure with buying the supplies and the labor put in, the cost is worth it to have it professionally done.

Ugh.
I don't think its snobbery at all, but at my school only sororities wear lettered shirts. A conservative polo with your organizations name or any of a million shirts for rush, semiformal, philanthropy, etc. are great ways to show which fraternity you are a member of. For the most part, however, dressing nicely is practically a requirement.

See, up here...those polos are what the 60 year old alumni wear at homecoming. And I don't understand why party shirts with tacky screen prints and slogans are any less "gaudy" than letters.

What's cool & accepted varies so much from campus to campus (even within geographical regions). Let's just trust that the original poster KNOWS her own campus & let her make her boyfriend a shirt! LOL

I remember when I was at UNC-Chapel Hill, it was not at all cool for students to wear any kind of shirt/sweatshirt that promoted the UNC Tarheels. What was cool was wearing shirts from other campuses.

Well said. And I think it's kinda funny that it was cooler to wear other college's shirts instead of UNC.

I agree with you, but when you don't got it, you can't spend it. You have to resort to craftiness, as I often did in college also.

yeah, it was ok to wear NYU stuff to a degree, but more students wore other college stuff. but i think that is because lots of ppl transfer in from other schools... and those sweatshirts are expensive!

if she has $ to spend on crafts... she should save up a little more and just get the professional stitched letters. i dont know any guy who would wear a handmade/craft lettered shirt.

but hey, that again may be regional/campus difference.

That's funny.
Cuz one of my friends who was visiting me at school noticed (during dinner) that EVERYONE in the cafeteria was wearing either a Northface jacket or an school-related piece of clothing.:D

Actually, wearing UNC shirts on campus now isn't a big deal at all. Everyone has hundreds of Carolina shirts, and you wear them all the time. I do understand where PhiGam is coming from on this point, because while girls are starting to wear stitched letter shirts on campus, the guys practically never do. My boyfriend (who is in a fraternity) says they look too "guido" and not classy...his words, not mine! They tend to have lots of date party shirts, etc. that they wear all the time. It's interesting to me how different this is on other campuses!

And our Phi Gamma Delta chapter here also goes by Phi Gam. I never understood why they had a FIJI Island formal every year until I came across this site!

Where are you getting your stuff? Is it decent quality? When I was in school, long ago, the cheapest lettered sweatshirt I had was my chapter letters. $35 due to bulk discount. Today I think the hoodies run closer to $50-$60.

I have a sweatshirt like this (in my letters of course) for $30.

i've gotten many compliments on this one. i've also had it for about 2 years so... yeah, i'd say its decent.

Most hoodies I've seen are 40-50 bucks. Pretty sure I paid somewhere in there for mine and it was high quality in my opinion - since letters were popular where I went, i went through a lot of letters. I found that the stitching that goes completely around, as opposed to the "triangle stitch" (not sure what the technical term for it is) looked much better but many do the cheaper stitch and they still come out ok. T-shirts were usually around $30 and long-sleeded were $38-ish, and hoodies were $50 easy.

And lets not forget the sentimental value the letters would have if she made them herself... If they look decent, why wouldn't he wear them?

2 of my sisters and I went to Target and bought hoodies for $11.00 and got the letters sewn on at another place. So total, I paid $23 for my sweatshirt and I am in love with it :D

oh awesome! that is so weird, cause i was just in Target tonight, saw a really nice goldenrod zip-up hoodie that i was like "i should get letters sewn on!"

^^ Do I sense sarcasm...?

To get some letters made (which are just going to be stitched and cut by someone else) it would cost me about 30+ for a tshirt and about 50+ for a hoodie.

to make it myself, a tshirt costs about 10 bucks, i can get all the fabric i need for about 7, and then i'd need a pair of scissors and a sewing machine (which i already have access to).....and my letters would look just as good as getting them professionally done. You make it sound like anything i make would look like a second grader made them. I think not.

and as for the whole, is it accepted to wear letters deal, on my campus, yes it is. There is a guy in the fraternity (i believe he is an alum) but i have NEVER seen him wear something other than letters. he literaly own enough letters to wear letters every day for two weeks and not have to do laundry.

My b/f's big bro acutally got him letters the other day (a year after he was initiated), and he was really glad to have gotten them.

as i think about it, i've never seen a video or anything of another chapter of the same fraternity where they weren't wearing letters....but maybe the ones who don't wear letters just don't post videos of themselves singing.

I use 3 sisters for my shirts and none of their T's are over $22 (short sleeve), and they are of great quality.

If she wants to MAKE letters, then she should MAKE letters. If they end up looking like crap, then it's oops on her, and if they end up looking good, then he's got a nice set of letters to wear. And if he doesn't appreciate the time she put in making them (even if they come out like crap and get turned into a quilt or pillowcase or something) then he sucks.

I find that insane.
We have 2 stores on campus who do them for way cheaper. (One sews, the other has iron-ons (which are obviously cheaper)). At the place that sews letters, sweatshirts are like $30 (Unless you bring in your own clothes.. Like what I did. Then it's cheaper)