Making an Easter Applique Shirt

I sometimes struggle to come up with boys crafts and clothes. I shouldn't be surprised because when you look through a pattern catalog, there is only a handful for boys but the girls patterns are pages and pages and pages and well, you get the idea

To make it even harder, I have this fantasy of having coordinating outfits for my children for Easter. Not easily done when you have a boy and a girl. And I don't want to fall in to the rut of making the same thing year after year.

Last year I made my daughter this beautiful pink and black dress with some fabric she helped me pick out. So, for my son I bought him a black dress shirt and then made him a tie in the pink & black fabric. It looked cute without being too feminine.

This year I made my daughter this twirly skirt (mainly because I thought the fabric was too busy to make a whole dress out of it, plus she has been wanting a twirly skirt.) For my son, I thought I would take some of the fabric and applique it on to a shirt.

I started with a store-bought pre-shrunk t-shirt. I then cut out an image from the fabric that would give a nice representation (of Easter - showing the bunny, eggs and flowers.)

I chose to cut a circle because it was the easiest to cut out and stitch around. You could do other shapes.

I cut out the same shape of heat-n-bond adhered it to the fabric and shirt following the instructions on the package. I have used this heat-n-bond before and know that even though its says NO-SEW that is just not true. It only last no-sew for a few washings and then it peels off. It says on the package that you should not a sew through it, but I have never had any problems with that. It has neither left any residue, nor has done any damage to my needle. 

Using the heat-n-bond to secure it in place makes it so much easier to stitch a zigzag stitch around the perimeter. I only have a simple basic sewing machine, nothing fancy and certainly no serger (although, maybe someday).

And obviously, this is before Easter and I don't have a picture of my kids in this year's outfits yet. So, stay tuned to see them! Maybe next week's Wordless Wednesday!