Hey friends! It's officially a snow day here so the kids and I are hanging out in jammies and planning a lazy day of movies, cupcake baking, and maybe a quick romp in the springtime snow! But first I wanted to take care of the business of posting my promised how-to for making this flower-adorned tee. This is a great use for those old tees that are ready for the rag bin and the bonus is t-shirt material doesn't require hemming. It will fray slightly with washing and make a perfectly lovely flower! Here's the step-by-step:
old cotton Ts in various colors
scissors
pinking shears
sewing machine
needle & thread
plain t-shirt to adorn
1. Cut several strips of fabric from the old tees. I used a variety of widths (approx. 1" to 1.5") and lengths (10" to 14"). I cut some of the strips with plain scissors and others with pinking shears. Notice that neatness in cutting is not super critical here. :)
2. Set your sewing machine for a gathering stitch (the longest straight stitch with a very loose tension) and stitch along the long side of each strip, about 1/8" from the edge:
There is a pretty good video tutorial on gathering stitches right here - check it out if you're new to sewing!
3. Gently pull the bobbin thread to gather the length of the fabric:
4. After gathering, your strip should want to form a circle like this. I kept the gathering on one end a bit tighter (this will be the center of the flower.)
5. Get your needle and thread ready. Then roll up the fabric in a spiral (not too tight) and while holding the bundle, stitch across the bottom (gathered) side several times to hold the flower together:
6. After you've stitched the bottom of each flower together, turn them over and you should have something that looks like this: (the left flower was not pinked, the right one was!)
7. Repeat steps 1-6 to make as many flowers as you want to adorn your shirt. Then arrange the flowers on the shirt and pin them in place:
8. You might want to try on the shirt (or put it on a dress form) before stitching the flowers in place to see if there are any obvious gaps. (The flowers will droop down a bit when the shirt is vertical!) Using a needle & thread, hand tack each of the flowers to the shirt. Once the flowers are stitched in place, you can trim off all the extra gathering threads.
You don't have to make as many flowers as I did - a corsage of just three flowers would look super cute. Or you could use smaller strips to make petite flowers to adorn the neckline. And of course, the flowers would work for headbands, along the hem of jeans, or as a pin. Lots of options!
Let me know if you have questions and I'll try to help out! Have fun!
