A picture and a thousand words

I thought I’d try appliquéing cute things on some of the plain toddler shirts we have. So I bought Heat-n-bond Lite (which seems to be the medium of choice for this sort of work on the blogs I read), and happened to also see a cute little bird stencil. While Kevin and the kiddo went to the grocery store last weekend, I set up camp in our office and traced, cut and ironed, and watched three shows of Jon Stewart online. Such a fun use of an hour. When the guys got back, I had this, just waiting to be sewed (I planned to embroider eyes and beaks and branches later):

So we took a break for dinner and bedtime, and then I sewed during the Patriots game. I started by hand – so slow. So then I switched to the machine, but it was hard to keep the shape of the line right on such small pieces, and then I had a string of bobbin catches as I worked. Frustrating – the birds would have been so cute. The last bobbin catch would not come unstuck, and I ended up tearing the shirt. Hmm. Lessons for next time? Bigger pieces (not teeny tiny curves), start on the slowest speed setting, and use the walking foot. Rather than totally giving the shirt up for lost, though, I ended up reverse appliquéing in a turtle print that I love.

Here’s the inside of the shirt – I used the pinking shears on all the edges, shirt and patch. The stitching was just very tight, small zig-zags.

If I did this exact same thing again, I’d do a double (back to back) layer of the cotton, since I think it’s probably more airy and colder than the jerset knit. There’s enough of the turtle fabric to make matching pants – perhaps I’ll get around to that at some point? Love those turtles.