It feels like ages since the last time I posted anything here. If truth be told, I have been getting ready for baby number 2 by sleeping as much as I can. I know that once my little bundle of joy arrives I have months ahead of me of complete sleep deprivation.
Anyway, not all my time has been idle. For instance, while doing laundry I ended up ruining one of Phoenix’s t-shirts, and not wanting to throw it out, I decided to revamp it. Here I have included a tutorial on how to give a ruined t-shirt a second life by using an appliqué, in this case, a cool Che Guevara appliqué.
Tools and Materials:
- felt
- cotton fabric of your liking
- heat’n bond iron on adhesive
- marker
- self-healing mat
- rotary cutter
- scissors
- needle
- embroidery floss
- iron
- t-shirt to be revamped
Here is the t-shirt I ruined. I want to make sure the dolphin image is completely covered. Basically, my goal is to turn it from this:
Into this:
So, I start by choosing an image I like. I am going to be using a Che Guevara image. When choosing an image, please remember that simpler lines work best, you don’t want anything too intricate.
This image has too much detail, so I need to decide what details I am going to keep and what details I am going to get rid of. I simply take a marker and outline the areas I will keep.
Now, I take my Heat’n bond iron on adhesive (it can be purchased at any craft store), and copy the image onto it.
I cut loosely around the image and now I am ready to heat fuse the The Heat’n bond onto the wrong side of the fabric by ironing it. Follow manufacturer’s instructions. You usually press for a few seconds only.
Once the image has been heat fused to the fabric, I allow a couple of minutes for the fabric to cool off and I take the scissors and carefully cut out the image following the outlines.
For the inner details I use a rotary cutter on a self-healing mat (you don’t want to damage whatever surface you are working on).
Now, I am ready to heat fuse this onto a piece of felt (remember I need to cover the whole dolphin area in the t-shirt). Remove the paper backing, position image of Che Guevara as desired, and heat fuse by using the iron. Remember to follow manufacturer’s instructions.
I heat fuse some Heat’n Bond to the back of the felt, which is then fused onto the actual area of the t-shirt that I need to cover.
Now, all is left to do is stitch around the edges to secure the appliqué in place. I like to do this by hand, using a blanket stitch.
And here is the final result:
You can go the extra mile by adding the word Che, by using the same technique. Just remember to copy the mirror image of your letters onto the Heat’n Bond, otherwise you will end up with backwards letters.
The t-shirt looks really nice once it is on. Phoenix already wore it once, but had it covered in food before I was able to take any photos.
