Choke Shirt Company Blog

Merry Choke-mas Getaway Details!

2011-11-07T17:34:00.001-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again... whether you like it or not the air is getting chillier and the sun goes down WAY too early. We can all agree that the only bright spot of this time of year is the holidays... so we here at Choke have decided to make it a little brighter this year!

We're heading up to Vancouver, BC in December for a holiday retail show called the One of a Kind Show. It's going to be pretty exciting! Tons of vendors from the US and Canada selling all kinds of unique, handmade items. And we want to share that with one lucky Choke fan. So we're giving away a trip! And not just any trip... it's a "Canadian Holiday Shopping Adventure"!

One lucky winner and a friend will win the following:

(2) Entries to the Vancouver One of a Kind Show
(2) Round trip tickets on Amtrak from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC (up on Saturday, December 10th, back on Sunday, December 11th)
(1) One night hotel stay at the Luxury Downtown Vancouver Pan Pacific (one room, 2 double beds) located next to the Vancouver Convention Center
(1) $200 Choke shopping credit at our One of a Kind Show booth
(2) Drink tickets and (2) recycled shopping totes (courtesy of Vancouver One of a Kind Show)

All you have to do to sign up for the contest is click the "Merry Choke-mas Getaway" link on Facebook or orange link on the bottom of our website. Make sure to share us with your friends, so they have a chance to win!

The last day to enter is November 18th and the lucky winner will be randomly selected on November 21st.

Annoucing Our New Location!

2010-08-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

We announced last week that Choke is moving from our current Print Shop space to a new, larger space in Seattle.

Right now: We work out of a 425 sqft studio workspace on 1st Ave S, just west of Qwest Field. The space has been amazing to get us started in the world of screen printing and managing a graphic tshirt company. The only problem (well... there's a few) is that we've outgrown it.

The 8ft rotary screen printer fits snugly in the 10ft x 15ft room that includes a conveyor belt dryer, flash dryer and 3 work cabinets. A second room houses our computer, printers, samples and exposure box. Did we mention windows? Oh, no we didn't... that's because we're in the middle of the building with only one door and no way for air to circulate. Let me tell you... it gets toasty in here.

The bathroom (which we don't use for our personal businesses) doubles as a "light safe" darkroom where we have screen racks, a pressure washer and a spray out booth that drains into the bathtub. We know... classy.

We're also on the second floor (no elevators) and have to buzz our customers in for meetings and pick ups. And not that we want to spend a lot of time bitching about our current space... but you know the worst part about going to Mariners/Sounders/Seahawks is the traffic and parking situation. Well... welcome to our lives everyday.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS: The NEW Choke Shirt Co. + Print Shop will open in September in a 1500 sq ft. space at the corner of Holgate and Airport Way in SODO. The space is a flexible use industrial style commercial unit in the newly built Holgate Square retail complex. The space has a large garage door in the front and a 500 sqft loft mezzanine. The space will include everything mentioned in our old space, as well as the full line of Choke tees, hoodies and baby apparel.

We'd love to post pictures of the space... but it's not even built out yet!
Why SODO you ask? Many people ask us why we don't open a retail location in a busy Seattle "walking" neighborhood like Ballard or Fremont. And here's the answer: We don't want to run a retail store: with retail hours, retail weekends and retail customers. 75% of our business is destination based (customers who need screen printed tees and are willing to travel outside of their neighborhood to get them). We love SODO. We love the industrial feel of this neighborhood. It's relatively easy to get in and out of being that it is so close to I5 exits and the city. Plus we enjoy the community feel and the flexibility of the neighborhood markets and festivals that we participate in and will continue to be a part of those.

On that note... we'll leave you with a few pictures of the outside of the new shop. Stay tuned for more info about the space and our Grand Opening shindig to be held sometime in September!

Guy Photoshoot

2010-07-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

Check out some of the pics from our photoshoot with Arden on Saturday. We're hoping to have a Girl photoshoot soon, so we can update those pics on the site. It hasn't really been that long since we had a pics taken... but we've definitely grown our line a lot this summer.

Seattle Square and our return to blogging...

2010-07-24T07:26:00.000-07:00

It's been way to long. And we've done so much in the beginning months of Summer. But one thing we haven't done is keep up with the blog. So that's our mid-new year's resolution. And it starts right now...

Today we're up early with tons of new stock to head down to Seattle's newest outdoor market "Seattle Square".
It's located in Pioneer Square's Occidental Park. There's going to be a ton of vendors in a Euro-style market format. Hopefully we'll meet some other sweet graphic tee designers.

So if you're in Seattle, have nothing to do on this beautiful Saturday and are actually reading our blog today... check us out. I think we'll be there until 5pm.

Finally, a Baby/Toddler Photoshoot!

2010-04-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

We finally took the time to have a baby and toddler photoshoot! The pictures turned out great!

Special thanks to Misty and Kristen for hosting the shoot and to Eowyn, Mackenzie and Addison for the expertise in modeling. Here are some of the pics:

Print Shop April Special...

2010-03-31T22:29:00.000-07:00

We have a Print Shop special of 100 white tees with 1 color ink print for $340. That's only $3.40 per tee. You really can't beat that!

Back in the Swing of Things...

2010-03-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

After a crazy holiday season and a slow (but still really good) winter... we're getting back in the swing of things.

We've already launched the first half of our Spring line with 3 new tees, 2 new baby onesies and 2 toddler tees. You can check them out online at www.chokeshirtco.com The pictures kind of suck right now, but we're hoping to have a shoot in the next few weeks so we can get some real people in the tees. All of the new designs have sold pretty well in the past few weeks which is very enouraging. It usually takes a few weeks before people bite when we launch new stuff. One of our wholesalers -- Solstice in Pike Place Market -- is going to pick up Cogs and Fahantay in a few different colors and test them out.

We've already printed a fourth design and it should be online soon! Stay tuned for more (and more often) updates!

Choke Debuts in 3 New Seattle Stores

2009-10-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Choke is now available in 3 Seattle area stores:

Rising Stars: a children's store
7321 Greenwood Ave. N

Venue Ballard
5408 22nd Ave NW

Solstice: Designs by Locals
1501 Pike Place #409

You should check them out and tell them how much you heart Choke!

Seattle AIDS Walk

2009-10-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Enough of this crap! It's time to start blogging again!

We successfully printed this year's Seattle AIDS Walk tees and helped sponsor our first major event! Check out the website here if you want to contribute to Lifelong.

Congrats to the winners of the Seattle Tee Raffle:

Amy Burdick
Claire Sullivan
Nancy Kincl
Heather Tritue
Ester Melmic

CONGRATS! We mailed out your select color and size of Seattle tee yesterday. Enjoy!

Choke Teams with The Man in a Van Project

2009-07-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

Choke Shirt Co has teamed with the Man in a Van Project's Aaron Heideman to offer two new shirts. These two shirts were designed by Aaron and printed by Choke Print Shop.

Check out http://www.themaninavanproject.com/ for more info regarding Aaron's project.

Choke Announces Donation to Lifelong AIDS Alliance

2009-06-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

Choke Shirt Co announces a donation of $300 to Lifelong AIDS Alliance from the sales of our CHOKE PRIDE tees. $5 from the sale of every shirt was donated.

Thanks to all of our customers who purchased these tees and wore them to Seattle's Pride 2009!!!

It's that time of year!

2009-06-25T09:36:00.001-07:00

And CHOKE is celebrating with a new shirt!

Check it out:

Just in time to wear during this year's PRIDE PARADE!

The CHOKE PRIDE shirt comes in two different versions. One for you sassy gays (and their friends) and one for the rest of us. :)

The shirts are only $15 and $5 of that will be donated to Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

The shirts are available to order online OR you can check us out this weekend at the Capitol Hill Pride Fest on Broadway (Seattle)!

Apparently blogs don't write themselves...

2009-06-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

We've had an AMAZING couple of months. Here are the hightlights...

1.) We launch Choke Print Shop. Who knew there was such a void in the Seattle area for a good quality Screen Printer? We have met some great new clients and have already had several return customers. You can check out the Print Shop webstie at www.chokeshirtco.com/printshop.php.

2.) We successfully launched out babyCHOKE line and have added several new designs (photos coming soon to the website.)

3.) We have launched several new unisex and women's designs. Here are a few:

4.) We launched several of our current styles in new colors:

5.) We launched out line of ORGANIC shirts:

We just had our most recent photoshoot two weekends ago and there's already several new items that are not online!! Pictures of those items should be coming soon.

Well, that's it for the CHOKE Blog update. We'll try to update more often, so you know what's going on at CHOKE.

Here we come ISSAQUAH!!

2009-04-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you live on the Eastside, come check us out at the Issaquah Market on Saturday April 18th!

We're driving cross-country (and by country, I mean out of the Seattle city limits) to the Pickering Barn at 1730 10th Ave. N.W.

Google Map it and we'll see you there!

Seattle Times Finally Prints Something Worth Reading...

2009-04-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just kidding! I heart the Seattle Times... but you should definitely read the article here about us.

New at Choke!

2009-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

What do royal blue, mermaid green, purple and lime have in common? They're the newest colors at Choke Shirt Co.!!!

We're printing some new designs soon (boombox, on the wire, aviation, planet no. 2) in bright Spring colors, along with some of your favorites (poppy, giraffe, Choke scarves) back in new colors as well!!

Check out http://www.chokeshirtco.com/ in the next few weeks to see what's new!

Until then, here's a bad iPhone picture of a sneak peek:

NEW!: babyCHOKE

2009-04-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Available now at http://www.chokeshirtco.com/!

New Page on ChokeShirtCo.com!

2009-04-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

Check out our new LINKS & PRESS page on www.chokeshirtco.com.

It has links to our favorite networking websites and you can also check out some of the reviews that local and national bloggers have posted about us. Hopefully we'll be in People Magazine soon!

Here we come again PDX!

2009-03-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

After a very very eventful Sunday market in Fremont two weeks ago, where our tent was destroyed by a freak wind storm, we took last weekend off to work on a few special projects that we have going on.

But, with our new (hopefully sturdier tent) we'll be back on the market circuit this week!:

March 28th at the Portland Saturday Market!
March 29th at the Fremont Market in Seattle!

We hope to see you there!

SUCCESS!

2009-03-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Portland Saturday Market was a success!

Special thanks to our friend Pete for tagging along with Matt and helping him set up and tear down. I had to spend the day getting all moved in to our new apartment and hanging out with the pup.

Matt got all set up in the last spot underneath the bridge and with the rainy weather that day it's a good thing! He was lucky enough to have a couple of neighbors that let him borrow some lights, otherwise it would have been a dreary day. Portlanders loved our new Freedom hoodie and we almost sold out of the 24 that we originally printed. We DID however sell our last "Shut the..." tee.

So we bid farewell to the tee that garnered our first (and only) national exposure when it was posted on pinkisthenewblog.com last December.

Sunday at the Fremont Market we saw the last "Poppy" hoodie go and it brought up a good question that we had been quietly dealing with since we started Choke...

Should we or shouldn't we reprint our designs??

Our first instinct is to make them "special" by only having a limited number of designs printed. We also want to be able to keep adding new, fresh designs and don't want to be stuck reprinting the same designs over and over. But the business side (and our customers, for that matter) tell us that that is ridiculous! If people are willing to buy the designs, why not have them available?

So we decided that we will make the decision on a case by case basis. "Shut the..." has seen it's last run, but we are moving forward with a new run of "Poppy" and "Freedom". They should be available by the week of the 22nd!!

So if you didn't have the opportunity to buy one of these two hoodies, come back in the next few weeks to order one!

PDX

2009-03-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

I know it's late notice, but if you're in Portland today (March 7th)... Matt is down at the Portland Saturday Market until 5pm tonight!

Check out our tees and hoodies as they make their debut in PDX!

Depending on how it goes, we may be there a couple of times a month...........

2 New Designs

2009-03-04T06:31:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned earlier last week... we have 2 new designs that we've launched.

Here they are:

So far Freedom has proved to be very popular. I really like it on the Asphalt grey color. But that's most likely due to the fact that I already have a million blue hoodies.

Just Dance, which by the way, was originally designed and named WELL BEFORE the recently popular Lady Gaga song (thank you very much!) Not that I don't like the song, because I do. And we actually just bought her new single Pokerface, which I really like too. But anyways, Just Dance, might have been a little premature with the sleeveless hoodie (it is winter after all), but has received some good attention as well.

Check them out online and let us know what you think: chokeshirtco@gmail.com

Where's the heads at?

2009-02-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

So we've gotten a lot of feedback about the new site!

Thanks so much to everyone that checked it out. It was a lot of work, but I'm happy that we did it. It's a lot more user friendly that it used to be, so I really appreciate that.

One thing that we heard A LOT was that the shopping pictures didn't show the heads of the people. Haha... well if you check out most of the major shopping store websites (Urban, GAP, Nordstrom...) none of them show the heads of people. So I was just following in line with everyone else.

But you let us know that you wanted to see the heads! So they're back. Well, actually the never went anywhere... I just cropped them off before... but I'm digressing... and they're back now!

We had a photo shoot today with our good friend Arden, so that we could get the 2 new designs on the site. I've mentioned them before, but I'll post those pics as soon as we get them. Heads and all!

Other than that we've been working on putting together our next big project! More on that soon!

CHOKEspotted #2

2009-02-22T18:40:00.001-08:00

And here's another round of CHOKEspotted.

Send in your pictures of you in your CHOKE tees and hoodies to chokeshirtco@gmail.com!

What do you think???

2009-02-16T09:27:00.001-08:00

Coming Soon!

2009-02-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

We have two new designs coming soon!

I can't give many details (mostly because we're not really sure what we're going to print yet) but I can tell you that one will be printed on an American Apparel zippie hoodie and the other will be available on a crew neck tee and a sleeveless zippie hoodie.

I know, I know... it's crazy. But you're going to love them! More info soon...

SPOTTED!

2009-02-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Want to see what real people look like in your favorite CHOKE tee or hoodie...

Check out the newest page on http://www.chokeshirtco.com/: CHOKE spotted.

Now all of our customers, online and in Seattle, can share photos of themselves wearing the CHOKE brand.

Here are the first few pics to check out:

If you have a pic of yourself or a friend in a CHOKE tee or hoodie, send it to us at chokeshirtco@gmail.com!

And if you don't have a pic in your CHOKE stuff... TAKE ONE!

WELCOME!!

2009-02-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

WELCOME TO THE NEW CHOKESHIRTCO.COM!

Well, not welcome here... but welcome to the new site at http://www.chokeshirtco.com/ We launched the Choke 2.0 website late Thursday night after a couple weeks worth of collaboration between us and some friends (both new and old).

We had a photoshoot last weekend and the shots look amazing! It was killing to have to wait to put them on the site, but we wanted to wait for the relaunch. I was able to finish up the design and layouts in the past couple of days, so there it is.

I'll post some of my favorite shots later, but out of the 1500 photos that we took that day there were some amazing photos.

Thanks to Pete Lorimer, our photographer; Paul Stazel, our makeup guy; and all of the models that helped us: Arden, Jason, Talia, Jasmin, Sherra and Sara.

What do you think about the new site?

Your Wait is Over!

2009-02-03T21:18:00.001-08:00

I know, I teased everyone a couple of days ago with our new Choke Logo Design on some hoodies that, well, you can't buy even if you wanted to... but your wait is over! The Choke Logo Scarves are in and they are toasty warm. The silly things are 8 feet long! Check them out:

Here's Matt sporting one of them in Eggplant. This is a totally off the cuff photo that we took this morning with my iPhone, so parden the bad lighting. A better photo of it is on our site. It also comes in brown. And to top it off it's only $15!

In other news... you might notice that the layout of the scarf on the site is different from the other pictures. Well, this is the new layout that we will be using when we relaunch the website in a couple of weeks. I know, it's only been a few months but I've learned so much about developing websites that I have a few plans to make it look a ton better. Plus, after the photoshoot that we had this weekend, we have a TON of good photos to use. I think people will find it much easier to shop tees and hoodies when they can see pics of them on REAL people! What do you think?

More on the photoshoot later...

I have bad news and I have good news...

2009-02-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

What do you want to hear first?

Bad news! We got our newest design in today. Unfortunatly for you (well, most of you anyways) it was a Limited Edition print on a couple of hoodies for some special customers (and us) that preordered.

Check out the design:

You likey? Well here's the good news! It's available in a couple of American Apparel Fine Jersey Scarves. Let me tell you, these scarves are amazing. A couple of photos will be posted later. But for now, imagine these scarf colors: Eggplant and Brown...

I know, how will you make it through the day?

And if that wasn't enough!!...

2009-01-19T09:40:00.001-08:00

Hello again! Two posts in one day, I know, I know... I should get a hobby.

But I have some great news! We are now able to offer a cheaper shipping option for our U.S. customers.

So here are the options (new and old):

USPS First Class Mail (3-6 days) - $2.50
USPS Priority Mail (2 days) - $5
Hand Pick Up - $0 Available for customers buying shirts online, to pick up at the Fremont Market, an event or from one of the two of us personally.

The First Class Mail option cuts the shipping cost in half and only adds one more day!

You've waited this long for your Choke Tee... another day is nothing!

NEW HOODIE: Giraffe's a bit warmer now!

2009-01-19T07:05:00.001-08:00

We had an amazing day at the Market yesterday!

The sun was out and so were all the people. It was the first time that we weren't freezing for 8 hours. I was super thankful for that. And we definitely have a better time with each other when we're not both so pissed that it's cold outside :).

We launched the Giraffe Hoodie yesterday on the website and at the market to rave reviews. People love it and it's definitely hoodie weather right now!

It's an American Apparel hoodie (of course!) in Dark Heather Grey and it comes in sizes from extra small to large. It's the same design as the original Giraffe tee, but the printing changes from hoodie to hoodie because of the pocket seams. It looks really great and we've alerady sold a few of them! Check it out on the website!

What's Been Going On?

2009-01-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

Well, a lot has happened since those first few days.

We haven't really enjoyed the success at the market as we did our first three weekends, but that is to be expected. It's January now and people are holding their wallets close to their butt pockets. We expected it to happen. It's hard to sell tees when you're freezing your butt off. We're excited for the day when we can actually wear the tees to the markets, without 3 layers on top of them.

Anyways, we're getting ready to start the process of a Spring/Summer line. We decided to combine the two since we should have been working on Spring last fall. Oops! It's time to play catch up now! So our Spring line might include a few new tees, a hoodie and some scarves! We're excited about the new designs and we'll share them on here as soon as they have been chosen. (We definitely have a few good designs to choose from.)

In the mean time, we just ran a reprint of the Giraffe tee. We had it printed on some women's heather grey tees and a few hoodies, too! It should be updated on the website by the weekend and will be available at Sunday's Fremont Market. Hope to see you there!

Practice makes perfect!

2009-01-06T09:57:00.001-08:00

Practice makes perfect!

Pink is the New Shirt Company

2008-12-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

So it’s been a crazy week!

We placed another order for more shirts from American Apparel on Sunday night so that we could print more of our Seattle design. It seemed to be a fan favorite at the Market, so we wanted to have more going into the holiday season. We ended up getting those delivered on Saturday, just in time for the Market on Sunday.

Matt sold shirts at his work’s Trunk Show on Thursday and Friday. We ended up selling quite a few shirts!

Throughout the week, we emailed a bunch of bloggers a few pictures of our designs to see if we could create some kind of buzz with the online store. Check out some of them, click the name to link: Alex Garcia in Seattle and Blogazar. Matt and I thought it would be fun to send a picture into Pink is the New Blog, which is a pretty popular blog that we’ve both been reading for several years. The guy that runs the blog posts pictures that readers send in mostly with the theme, “Pink is the New…(fill in the blank)”. So we sent in one of the picture with Lindsey on it, in a Shut the Front Door tee. It’s the brown one, with pink letters and it had our website on the bottom. We didn’t really even think about it… I guess we figured it was a long shot. Long story, short… on Saturday we got an order from someone in Alaska.

Then Chicago, then Washington, D.C and Michigan. And the orders for the shirt poured in. Needless to say, we’re out of the Shut the Front Door tee now. We placed an order for more shirts from American Apparel on Sunday night again and we called our screen printers to let them know we needed them as soon as possible. I’m hoping that we get them before Sunday for the Market. Plus it’s the last weekend before Christmas and we’re hoping that the buzz will lead to more people seeing it.

It was pretty crazy for everything to blow up in one week. We’ve had to go to the Post Office every night to mail off shirts. I’m hoping that soon, we’ll streamline that whole process. Especially this time of year, the lines are super long. But for now, I don’t mind at all. It’s nice to be doing something that is for us. That we created.

Anyways, we’ll be at the Fremont Market on Sunday again this week. Maybe we’ll see you there!

Launch Day!

2008-12-07T02:01:00.000-08:00

We finally did it! We launched our shirt company today! And you made it here! Thank you, by the way!

After about four months of good times, bad times and all the times in between, we finally completed Round 1.

We spent all day today at the Fremont Market in Seattle, WA. It was rainy and cold... but we had quite a few shoppers. Our first sale was to a guy who spent 4 seconds at our booth, ending with "My son will wear anything" and he bought one. It was very anti-climatic and Matt and I just looked at each other, like "OK, what do we do now?" He left happy though. We knew we were in for a treat when one lady walked up and asked, "what is this?", pointing to the Giraffe shirt. Matt said, "it's a Giraffe!" and the lady replied, "Oh, I thought it was a slug. With a crown on." Oh geez.

Our little booth got quite a bit of action throughout the afternoon though. We ended up selling 14 shirts, to a wide range of people. Someday, when I'm not so busy updating the website, taking pictures, folding tees or designing I'll share the store about how our little Choke Shirt Co. came to be. For now, I'm going to get started on my next batch of things to do. Thanks for stopping by... and happy shopping!