Crysau-T / T-shirts

Welsh General / Questions
#1

I’ve been thinking for a long time about t-shirts, especially when the Eisteddfod comes around. There’s always talk about SSiWers wearing t-shirts in order to be recognised amongst each other on the Maes, but of course we already have some available here. The thing is, they’ve been around for a long time and although they’re fabulous, they haven’t really flown off the shelves and haven’t made the ‘en masse’ impact at the Eisteddfod that we hoped they would. When it comes to the Eisteddfod and t-shirts though, there is pretty tough competition. The t-shirt company Cowbois seem to have universal appeal, their designs are fresh, colourful and pretty cool - and this is just one company amongst many.

Welsh t-shirts with slogans are now immensely popular - everybody wants the coolest ones. Like the t-shirts you buy at gigs, people collect them and tend to keep them forever, even though they’re faded and frail at the seams. They seem to mark eras in history.

What I’m wandering is, if a company such as Cowbois were to design funky t-shirts for Welsh learners/new Welsh speakers/SSiWers would you be at all interested in buying?

I would like to ask kindly if you would have a look at the link to our current selection and have a look at the Cowbois website (links above) and tell me what you think in the poll below. Diolch yn fawr iawn!

  • I would never wear a t-shirt/hoodie with slogan.
  • I might buy an SSiW/Welsh learner, t-shirt/hoodie with slogan depending on the design.
  • I’m very likely to buy a newly designed (SSiW/Welsh learner) t-shirt/hoodie with slogan.

0 voters

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#2

cThanks… My answer to the questionnaire above will be more enthusiastic when I have found (a job? daren’t say it!) some extra income, and being cautious I do not want to get hopes up.

I’m a bus user and often there are no bus shelters, have disabled friends who use disability scooters, need to carry round art materials to community groups whom I’d like to encourage to chat-along-to-craft-and-colouring-for-relaxation in any smattering of language they’d like to practice.

I want to take songbooks in many languages in bags made of recycled & waterproof materials that can be attached to ukulele or other instrument cases already purchased.

I want to explore throw on throw off rainwear along the lines of Mrs Iestyn’s ponchos & capes, but I personally use a bike sometimes, have never enough cycle wear and am happy for all the jolly colourfulness of language learning to replace horrid Nike-logo-ed stuff I’ve bought in sales.

[In fact patches that cover up commercial logos of multi+nationals that still disgust me - e.g. when Sainsbury’s were going to become Walmart I wanted to throw their bags in protest, would be handy.]

Gift vouchers that come in a language-learning, and “explore the Welsh/Manx/Dutch/Spanish World ‘encouragement pack’ “ will be nice for those who can actually afford Christmas & Birthday presents.

I do not buy from Amazon - their systems do not like me, so I am still hoping to learn about hill walking, sex and Aran, or whatever…

As part of a gift pack available for purchase if I can get to Saith Seren, Tŷ Tawe, Aberystwyth, even if only to Ros’s Burway Books in Church Stretton - known to Palas Print as also independent, or Pethe wotsit yn Y Trallwng which has a cycle shop nearby I might get Aran’s or other recommended books.

Or on a Derby Welsh School Day if I ever, ever get there…

That is the time when, the context in which I cannot resist a splurge and am likely to go a little mad and buy summat I might have later to pass on to a friend, or a friend’s child (not the book on Aran & Hill Sex).

Useful, beautiful if poss, artistic and poetic and tasteful, definitely ethical yet relatively cheap/easy on wallet cos recycled, but on display, (perhaps subtly, perhaps not) in outerwear seems to me to be the thing. Golf Umbrellas catch the wind but are brilliant on demos if they could be personalised. No more lost children! ?

Even underwear that reminds me that I am absorbing the rich culture and the Welsh contribution to World Heritage, shot with threads of colour, through and through, even next to the skin…

I’m too literally “brainstorming” now. Scared of the (bus) road & rail to send myself to the care of @andyjones_1 and @mintonman and co in Coventry, where Lady Godiva needs A SSi Welsh/Manx/Dutch/Spanish cape!

#3

Okay… so now my mind is thinking how wonderful it would be to have Say Something in Welsh songs, recipes et al available from across our membership… SSiW Favourites. I have learnt so much from SSiW members on Slack, at parties, in regular meetings (a map of meetings on my back?) and I think that would interest others.

SSiW is the Portal, the Stargate to a richer life…

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#4

I haven’t bought any Welsh themed tshirts on a while. There’s a shop in Tenby called Two Red Dogs that sell nice stuff I had a Tenby vest top from there once. I used to have a Welsh dragon top but never replaced the last one when I got older. My favourite was one I had as a child ‘you can take the girl out of Wales but can’t take Wales out of the girl’ that’ll be more apt when I start speaking Welsh. Lovely tops on that website

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#5

I’ve got the “Arafwch nawr” one, and I like to wear things with recognisably Welsh slogans on, in the hope of parlaying them into a conversational opportunity :slight_smile: I also have a shirt for the stage adaptation of Chwalfa, which was donated by one of the cast as a quiz prize, and a Cymdeithas yr Iaith “Tafod y Ddraig” one, as well as the one covered in little dreigiau cochion that my partner made me. TBH I think the only one that has aroused much comment is the SSiW Arafwch Nawr one, probably because it looks like a roadsign and even monolingual Seison often recognise Araf from genuine roadsigns. So yes, I think I’d be quite likely to buy a new SSiW one, if it looked funky enough to be plausibly provoking of comment… :smile:

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#6

I need one of these t-shirts.

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#7

….all of those for me too and, to some extent, something relatively unique. The only trouble with slogans on hoodies/t shirts is that people you know buy them first and then it’s a bit embarrassing buying them yourself. I know a really lovely hoodie I want but it falls into the category of ‘make sure you never wear it when your friend does’ so it remains in my online shopping trolley. I suppose the only other alternative is for there just to be one design and that it is compulsory for everyone to wear it…!

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#8

I might be tempted to buy a tshirt, but being my age, gender and shape, I would need to consider the placement of any words/logos etc - hope you get my drift

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#9

I love redbubble for tshirts that do a loose fit which is great. Trying to get a top that is a good fit can be tricky.

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