Gettin' Crafty

I took the plunge and made a few shirts for the Little Bit.  He turns two on Saturday and I've been meaning to make something for him since before he was born.  Better late than never, right?

To start with, I got an easy pre-made applique and an iron-on transfer from Joann Fabrics.  Since I'm not terribly crafty, I thought it better to start small.  These were insanely easy.  Seriously, I put a sheet of cardboard inside the t-shirt, lined up the design and ironed them on.  Took me about 10 minutes total.

The lighting is terrible on this one but it's a bright red monster
on a black t-shirt.

I'm getting ahead of myself with this one since he can't even
wear it for another 5 months.

Since these went so well, I decided to step it up and make an applique from a pattern.  I stumbled on an amazing blog a few weeks ago called Crap I've Made.  She's got some great ideas, including this one for a two-year old's shirt (she's also got a link to the pattern but you could make it yourself easily).  I decided to make it for Little Bit to wear this Saturday.  

The process was really pretty easy.  Well, until I got to the sewing part.  I fused the applique itself to the shirt in 3 pieces using Wonder Under (it's awesome stuff, really.)  Now, by itself, Wonder Under should hold the applique to the shirt just fine.  But I wanted to get fancy and stitch around the design.  Oy....well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  

The shirt looks fine from afar, but when you get up close, you think I'd been drinking when I did the stitching.  For the record, I had not, it being bad for the baby and all, I just stink at sewing.  I've had zero training, my machine was a freebie because it was already broken and including this shirt, I have stitched about 4 things.  Ever.  So, don't judge me too harshly...

Not too shabby from way back here.

Oh, but up close!
I think this is what you'd call a "Monet."

I was really pleased with the cost of all the projects.  The t-shirts were all on sale at Joann for $3 apiece.  The big brother iron-on and the red monster applique both came in two-packs for $4.  The fabric for the 2 t-shirt could have easily come from a scrap bag, but as I don't have any scraps, I bought a bundle of fat quarters for $8 and have lots of fabric left over.  I also bought a bag of felt buttons to make the pom-pom for the hat for $5 since I can see myself using them for many projects in the future.  The thread I used for the stitching is left over from the few cloth wipes I made nearly two years ago.  Oh!  And the wonder under was $7, and I have yards left over.  So, each shirt was more-or-less around $6, which is certainly comparable or even cheaper than buying a shirt new.  It doesn't compare to getting it second hand, but, hey, I made this, and it was fun.