Sunday, December 11, 2016

Embellished Dress-up Shirt

The back of the shirt has an embellished red dump truck
The back of the shirt
I just finished embellishing a fun dress-up shirt for my friend Sonya's son. He loves trucks and dinosaurs and now he'll have his own dress-up shirt to play in.

I found the truck at kidsplaycolor.com It's a simple dump truck that I could copy and then embellish. I drew the truck onto freezer paper. Not an easy thing to do since I was at the fall retreat and didn't have a printer. I cut out the truck shape and used the freezer paper template to copy it onto the shirt. I then sewed the truck outline in red and then embroidered the tires in red and black. The metal-looking beads are perfect for the tire rims. The grill of the truck is sewn with metallic thread from the bobbin.

This week I read  Lara Buccella's Crafted Appliqué book. I had seen all of the blog posts about her book and was looking forward to reading it. Her technique is really great. I used it for both the truck and the dinosaur. Frankly I hadn't even though of using appliqué in this project until I read her book. It was the perfect technique.

Once I finished the appliqué, I used a black fabric pen to outline the windows and finish the tires. I also added three rows of red seed beads.
An embellished red dump truck
A very cool dump truck!
The front of the embellished shirt
The front of the shirt
For the front of the shirt I found an easy dinosaur to draw from fourpencil.com It's a Diplodocus.

To cover the Diplodocus,  I took out all of the colourful scraps I could find. I used the Crafted Appliqué technique,and then cut and ironed the fabric pieces in place, I used a multi-coloured King Tut thread to zig-zag stitch around each fabric piece. I embroidered the mouth and the eye with black embroidery floss.

a multi-coloured Diplodocus
The multi-coloured Diplodocus





What I learned:

  • I really enjoyed making this piece. I wasn't sure how I was going to fill in the truck, so I was really glad to read about the Crafted Appliqué technique.
  • I didn't think that I could draw both the truck and the Diplodocus from the computer screen. I am very pleased with the results. 








I've linked this post to the following parties - please check them out! Can I get a Whoop Whoop? Off the Wall Fridays, Oh Scrap! MOP Monday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Slow Sunday Stitching, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday.



14 comments:

  1. Isn't the crafted appliqué technique wonderful? I am no longer hesitant to machine appliqué. Thanks for linking up with Oh Scrap!

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    1. Hi Cynthia, I love the technique. I'm so happy that I found out what the fuss was about. It will certainly be my go-to technique when ever possible.

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  2. How cute! It's really great to customize clothes that way! Thanks for sharing

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    1. Hi Alida, I was looking for the perfect shirt to customize and finally found this at Value Village. I hope he'll have fun playing dress-up with his sister.

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  3. Love the shirt Andrée. Someone is going to be very happy.

    Kathy

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    1. Thanks Kathy. I like beading but by the end of the third row, was happy to end it:-)

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  5. Both designs are too cute! Thanks for sharing on Midweek Makers

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    1. Thanks Susan. I gave it to him yesterday. It was a hit!

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  6. What boy wouldn't love such an adorable shirt. I've never heard of Crafted Applique, so you have me curious. I certainly have done my share of turned and raw edge appliqué over the years. Perhaps I need to add this technique to my tool box.

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    1. Hi Gwyned, I highly recommend it. I'll be using that technique as much as I can since I'm not a huge fan of appliqué, but it's often necessary....and he loved the shirt!

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