Help me procure a Ruff Ruffman shirt!

February 21, 2008 5:40 AM

My daughter is a huge Ruff Ruffman fan. She really wants a t-shirt with Ruff on it, but such a thing does not exist - well, at least there's no 'official' Ruff shirt from PBS or WGBH. I have been given a Dad Mission: procure a shirt by any means necessary. Can anyone find a Ruff graphic large enough to print on a shirt? (Format doesn't matter.) Have I missed a secret stash of RuffWear for sale somewhere? Does anyone know anyone who knows Ruff? Help me, Ask, my squeaky toy has lost it's squeak!
posted by unixrat to clothing, beauty, & fashion (12 comments total)

Best image I could find :
http://www.ket.org/pressroom/2006/21/FCTH__000000fetch_ruff_1048.jpg

It should be big enough to print onto a t-shirt without any loss of quality. Be sure to find a good print shop though.
posted by Vindaloo at 5:48 AM on February 21, 2008

Here is what you're looking for, I think. Click on whatever picture you fancy and select "full-size" above the picture. Save the pic and then you're on your merry way. Good luck!
posted by willie11 at 6:15 AM on February 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I feel for you. I was an obsessive Elmo fan as a toddler back in the late '80s and my mom recounts stories of calling toy store after toy store trying to find something, anything with Elmo on it. No dice, since at the time Elmo was a bit player on Sesame Street.

If your daughter is anything like me, she's about ten years ahead of her time and Ruff Ruffman will become hugely popular when she's just old enough to not care.
posted by crinklebat at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2008

You know, you can get iron on transfer paper for ink-jet printers like this . Make your own!
posted by d4nj450n at 8:21 AM on February 21, 2008

That iron on transfer paper doesn't look great to start with, and it doesn't hold up very well in the wash. I'd try to find a real printer, or maybe even one of those mall kiosks?
posted by robinpME at 9:12 AM on February 21, 2008

I beg to differ on the ink jet iron ons. I have made tees for my 4 1/2 year old daughter, my 2 year old son and myself since she was very little.
Use the Avery ones, wash them inside out and they last surprisingly well.
The only thing you have to watch out for is making sure that if you are going to use it on a colored tee that the colors in the iron on "work" for the color of the tee shirt. You will be golden if you use light grey or white though.
posted by ShawnString at 9:19 AM on February 21, 2008

You should take some of the stills from willie11's link and run them through VectorMagic, its free and online and you can scale them as large as you want without artifacting. Animation stills work very well with this process.
posted by phirleh at 9:42 AM on February 21, 2008

Have you noted this page? There are various prizes - downloads of PDFs, wallpapers and MP3s - that you can unlock by earning points playing online games. I notice there are several "t-shirt" PDFs - I wonder if these are meant to be used creating iron-on transfers?
posted by nanojath at 9:52 AM on February 21, 2008

I think that nanojath is probably right - those t-shirt PDFs are probably meant to be iron-ons. Since this is supposed to be a surprise, it looks like I'm going to have to play a bazillion kid word scrambles and things like that. :) Well, PBSKids will probably wonder why someone is grinding their games at 11:00 tonight when all kids are supposed to be in bed. :)

Many thanks to all!
posted by unixrat at 11:00 AM on February 21, 2008

Well, PBSKids will probably wonder why someone is grinding their games at 11:00 tonight

More likely they'll be tracking statistics on the other 500 parents doing the same thing. I can't decide whether this set-up is a good or bad thing. Teach you children to grind for epic loot early!

It's kind of cruel that there are 6 different t-shirts to make a blind selection from.
posted by nanojath at 11:16 AM on February 21, 2008

After playing a ton of 'guess the sound effect', I can tell you that the t-shirt PDFs from those games are exactly that - designed for t-shirt transfers! All right!

It'll probably take two more hours of drudgery to get the rest, but this is a definite solution.
posted by unixrat at 8:48 PM on February 21, 2008

If you don't want to bother with Iron-on transfers, you can create a shirt at Zazzle and upload your graphic. Should cost about $15.
posted by mmoncur at 11:36 PM on February 21, 2008