Day 292

This is simply awesome.

For the last nine and a half months I've been strictly adhering to Rule #2 of my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE T-shirt challenge; thou shall not purchase T-shirts to fulfill the quota. As you can see, I've been achieving this using the tremendously successful formula of requesting T-shirt donations from retailers and designers, who overall have been happy to oblige.

But recently, a tweet published by Pistonhead Lager opened my eyes to a brand new avenue of securing T-shirts for my cause; winning them.

A few days ago I was, performing my daily ritual of promoting my illustartion, design and newly stocked online shop across the Twitter-sphere, when a 140 character life preserver scrolled into view on my timeline.

'Retweet this tweet', it beckoned.
'Follow us', it called.
'Win a T-shirt', it promised.
'Ok', I thought. What does a tweet cost? Precisely nothing. No rule being broken here - if I win this T-shirt, I will have done so for free, at a cost of nothing to me, and zero damage to the challenge credo. So I retweeted, I followed and I waited.

The next thing I know, Claire from Pistonhead Lager had gotten in touch and asked for my postage details while congratulating me on my win.
I was ecstatic, let me tell you. I was a contest winner and the prize wasn't a money-off voucher or a free fries with my next purchase for a change. It was an actual, no-strings-attached, tremendously useful item of significance - a T-shirt promoting a Swedish brewed lager and it's doing very well to see me through Day 292.