I forgot to mirror my HTV and ironed it backwards (here's how to fix it without wasting the shirt)

HTV is backwards by design. The shiny carrier sheet goes face-up when you cut, which means your design cuts in reverse on the actual vinyl layer underneath. When you iron it, you flip the whole thing so the vinyl faces down onto the fabric. The carrier sheet peels off after, and boom, your design is right-side-up on the shirt.

Except you have to tell Design Space to mirror the whole thing before you cut. If you don't, your design cuts right-side-up on the vinyl layer, which means it irons down backwards. I've done this four times in three years. The worst part is you don't realize until after you've ironed and peeled, and by then the adhesive has activated.

My first instinct was to reheat the shirt and try to peel the vinyl back off while it was still warm. I set the EasyPress to 315°F, pressed for ten seconds, and tried to lift a corner with my weeding tool. The vinyl stretched, tore, and left a shiny adhesive smear on the fabric. The shirt looked worse than it did with backwards letters.

I also tried the freezer method I'd read about once, sticking the shirt in for twenty minutes and then trying to pop the vinyl off while it was cold and theoretically brittle. It did nothing. The HTV was bonded. I was stuck.

Here's what saved it. This works if you catch the mistake within a few hours and the vinyl hasn't fully cured yet. If you've washed the shirt or waited a week, you're out of luck and it's a sleep shirt now.