So, what's with all the forest critters?

Well, they're funny lil guys!

My name is Nich Miller, and I'm the founder of Creative Textile Company llc and the resident Trash Panda of my "squad".

This whole adventure started because my best friend started a company (Novox Research LLC) and needed merch. I got carried away and started my own company. Now, CTco is a partner brand to several small businesses and has produced custom work for a wide range of clients.

In the real world, I've been a paramedic for over a decade. I'm a husband, a father, and a regular Arkansas boy. I never, in my wildest dreams, expected to be running a apparel company.

The critters all represent me and my friends. Each of us is a competitive shooter, firearm designer, and functionally autistic goofball you and can see little bits of the real man represented in each drawing. It's a chance to take what we've done and who we are, as people, and make light of it. These silly little designs are my way of releasing those difficult emotions and experiences in a healthy and uplifting way.

Me, tired and out of pistol ammo.
WTF: Uphill Both Ways, 2024

Oh! The name and the strange slogan! I suppose someone is going to ask what that's all about.

I should start by saying that we make a lot of jokes about just how awful Imperial/Soviet Russia were. It's easy to do when their weapons engineers are so prominently known, and admired, in our other professional fields. That doesn't mean we have any love for their ideas and beliefs. It's just ironic and dark.
And so, "Creative Textile Company" is what we think famed firearm designer Vasiliy Degtyarev would have named his tee shirt company.

Just who was this Mr. Degtyarev? Why, he invented such prominent things as:
+Degtyaryov hand-held machine gun (RPD)
+Degtyaryov's machine gun (DP-27/28)
+Large-caliber Degtyaryov (DShK)
+Heavy Degtyaryov (DS-39)
+Degtyaryov single-shot anti-tank rifle
(PTRD- 41)

You can see how we came to such a literal naming solution.

The slogan is a play on an old imperialist-era Russian traditional saying: "You were born in a shirt!" It means, 'you are lucky'. We can't imagine anything funnier than the definition of "luck" being possession of a shirt, at birth.

Is it a deep, stupid, drawn out, overly complex joke? Absolutely.
Does it crack us up, every time?
Every time, yo.