Yesterday, I posted about our Christmas pictures and how happy I am with them. So now lets talk about the outfits. They were super easy to make and wallet friendly too. First I purchased red t-shirts at Wal-Mart. The boys were $3.50 and the girls were $5. Next stop Joann’s. I bought about 1 1/2 yards of the green (with candy cane’s) fabric and 1/2 yard of the red polka dot fabric. The rest of the pieces that I needed were so small that I just used up some scraps from fabric I already had.
First I appliquéd the shirts for all four. Then I used this simple t-shirt dress pattern from Duck Soup Originals to make the girls’ shirts into dresses. I used this pattern a lot when I was just learning how to sew. I highly recommend it for beginners. It is very easy and straightforward and when your done you’ve made a cute little dress.
O.K. so here is the low down on the appliqué.
Materials:
Fabric for appliqué pieces
Wonder Under
Shirt to appliqué onto.
Sewing machine, thread, etc.
Scissors
Iron
Pencil
You will need one circle piece (I used a bowl to trace this.)
One yellow piece to look like the metal top of the ornament.
One hook piece.
One initial. I used Curlz MT in size 300 font because that is what fit on my circle piece.
Important: Print out your appliqué pieces in reverse!
In this case it will only make a difference for the hook piece and the letters.
Draw out your pattern first until you get the look you want.
Next trace the individual pieces onto the smooth side of some Wonder Under.
Iron it onto the wrong side of your fabric.
Cut out all of your pieces.
Before you iron the pieces onto the shirt, lay everything out to make sure it looks right.
Peel off the back of the Wonder Under that is ironed onto the wrong side of your fabric pieces. Iron down the pieces that will be on the bottom layer. In this case, the hook was a good place to start.
Set the stitch length on your machine to 2.0. This will give you more control and allow you to make tiny movements without going off your fabric piece. I use a straight stitch. This just means that the appliqué pieces might fray a bit over time. Feel free to use a zig zag stitch to prevent fraying. Set the speed to slow and sew around the hook piece.
Next, peel the back off of the letter piece and iron it onto your circle.
Peel the backing off of the circle piece and iron it onto the shirt.
I forgot to mention that it might help to turn the shirt inside out and then open it up from the bottom when sewing the pieces on. This helps to prevent you from sewing the front of the shirt to the back of the shirt. Sew around the letter piece and then the circle piece. You should change the thread color each time your fabric color changes.
Finally, iron on the yellow piece and sew around it.
You can stop at this point or use Duck Soup Original's pattern to make it into a t-shirt dress.
