Showing posts with label Extremely quick projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Extremely quick projects. Show all posts

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Flying the Flag!!

Couldn't resist making some applique union jack tshirts for the 2 children who didn't have one already, yesterday. Last minute, day of wedding but really they were easy and didn't take long!

Bit scary doing something so permanent on a tshirt in case it inadvertently flies upside down (sign of distress, though not treason!). Had a panic once they were finished but no, I got it right. That would severely upset my perfectionist streak though no-one else would have a clue, I should think! (But you'd be less likely to see a photo on here!).

So - here are the 2 I did:



This was the first - I was going to leave the blue triangles to the imagination as the background was blue, but the artistic decision was made by LittleH#1 who wanted the flag to look authentic rather than artistic I think. Fair enough!!!!


Here's the second. I am happier with this one, and it was much quicker. I left the white to the imagination on this one, so it was much quicker as I only had to bond and applique the red and blue pieces. The original idea comes from a tshirt that I bought in a charity shop before we left England 2 1/2 yrs ago, and has been well loved in our family too - first by LittleH#1 and now LittleH#2, who is sporting it in the photo below.



So here they are!! All my lovelies watching the royal wedding in very appropriate attire.

Crafty notes:

  • For some reason the method used to trace onto the fusible web and then iron on to the tshirt resulted in a problem with the red strips. Must be that it creates a mirror image, so I should have traced them the other way around. The instructions didn't say to do them the other way, but that's what I discovered. It's only the second time I've done applique - the first time was about 5 years ago. 
  • The second tshirt was better sewing because I realised I should have swapped the needle. Had to quickly google to find out which Janome needle it was that I needed for stretchy fabrics, so now I know it's the blue tipped one.
  • I have run out of white thread. The whole thing was done from stash, and the red, blue and white all come from old baby tshirts / pjs. The fusible web was already in my sewing box (result!) so now everything is sorted it was easy for me to lay my hands on what I needed. (And I remembered from last time that I had no white left. Doh!). No-one should ever run out of white thread. I need to remedy that today.
  • It's given me an idea for a bigger project based on the union jack so that highly classified project will be revealed at a later point. But I will be looking for fabrics and trying to design something today. ;)
  • Oh and LittleH#3 (and now as I mention it, LittleH#2) has asked for a space tshirt next. I am going to do a shuttle tshirt (for each of them, I guess!). Hardest part about that will be finding a plain black tshirt to make it on, I should think.
  • So - I can't make clothes, but  I  can decorate them. ;)
Oh it feels good to be sewing again. :) The room was brilliant, and really made it easy to just do something on the spur of the moment.