>QRCodes with T-Shirts! It's the new fashion!
So, I've been playing around with QRCodes; these cheeky little 2D barcodes from Japan. Having used them as part of the treasure hunt for new freshers at Leeds Uni, I figured that with the trend of funky clothing and geekery, creating QRCodes for clothing would be cool. There's already a few guides for knitting QRCodes with a knitting machine out on YouTube, so here is my guide for sewing your own QRCodes.
A sewing machine and some material is clearly essential. I should point out that rather than sewing, a better term to describe my skill would be 'welding'.
Secondly, you'll need some T-Shirt transfer paper and an inkjet printer. I decided to go for this pack from Amazon. As QRCodes are black and white, printing black on white seems logical. Generally, t-shirt printing works only with light colours (something that I've hated!) but fortunately, these transfers are very good.
Next, you need to generate your design. I used photoshop and the QRCode Generator to get a nice image with a flame motif. Porting this into something like Pages, Word or Open Office, I printed out a stack of codes.
Remeber to reverse the design! This caught me out. As you are transferring the design, you'll be turning the paper over in order to iron it which mirrors the pattern. QR codes can't be read mirrored oddly enough! :P
The guide on the pack is pretty good and if you follow it reasonably closely, you'll get a result. I tried two materials: a thin, light shirt material and some thicker, brushed cotton. Turns out the thinner, shirt material worked better with the transfers though the brushed cotton feels much nicer. Whether or not that can be read with a reader is still an open question.
Next, you need to sew the edges of the badge so it won't fray. The result should look a little like the one shown in the image. Don't make the mistake I did of cutting out the patch from the main piece of material before sewing; it makes it a hell of a lot harder.
Once you've cut out your new badge, you can sew it to anything. I thought I'd try with one of my oldest and coolest t-shirts. It works quite well but remember that t-shirt material is an utter pain to work with. Don't try and cheat and not use pins. I screwed up here and tore a little of the sleeve. Pin it and make sure it's stretched right and in place.
Questions still arise. Can it still be read crumpled? How long does it last in the wash? How small can it go? can we morph and edit the code? We shall have to find out.
