Scribble Flower Shirt (J-Crew/Anthropologie)

Oh man, two posts in a row. Look at me go. Today I am going to show you the "Scribble Flower Shirt" that I decorated for my mom for the holidays. Take a peak at the shirts that it was modeled after to see if you're interested in making this craft.

Anthropologie sweater

This is the shirt that another girl made that was inspired by
said Anthropologie sweater.

Materials:

Plain shirt or sweater
Fabric paint or markers in various colors - I used markers. I actually didn't even think to buy paint, but I think that I would've like the markers better anyway because they allow you freedom to vary the opaqueness.
Needle and Thread
Sequins, buttons, beads (optional)

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of each step of the process, but you can get the idea here: http://simplyhandmadebypaige.blogspot.com/2010/07/tutorial-tuesday-guest-blogger-jessica.html --> I will admit that she has a ton of cute tutorials, but that doesn't mean you should stop reading e & k !

1. Take your shirt and scribble some blobs on there in different colors. The messier and more asymmetrical, the better, I say. Stop for a moment after each circle to take a look at your shirt. It's easy to get carried away and paint/draw too many, which would make it look like a clown shirt.

2. Sew shapes in the rough shape of flours on top of each scribble. You could probably hand stitch this, but I chose to use a sewing machine because I was pressed for time. You can obviously use whatever color of thread that you'd like but I think that black looks nice because it provides a stark contrast to all of the colors and is somewhat grounding.

3. In the center of the flowers, you can sew on sequins, buttons, or beads.

This is the shirt that I made. I realize the quality of the photo isn't very good,
but it's the only one that I have right now. I will try to upload better ones at a later date.

Au revoir!

- E

More T-shirt crafts

Sorry for my long absence. I have continued crafting since my last post but all of my projects are either half done or are too small to be worth posting here. This winter break I was excited to go back home (as I have re-located to The District for my masters), if only so that I could get my hands on a sewing machine (and see my friends, I guess... just kidding). I decided to decorate a shirt for my mom and a scarf for my boyfriend for the holidays. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the entire process, but I should be able to walk you through them, nonetheless.

T-Shirt Scarf Materials

needle and thread - you can hand stitch or use a machine
scissors
t-shirts
tape measure

1. First you're going to start out with your t-shirts. You can use plain ones as you'll see in mine or you can use some of your old favorites to make a memory scarf, as seen below:

(http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/10/t-shirt_memory_scarf.html)

2. Next decide the length and width that you'd like your scarf to be. You can take one from your closet and measure it. I believe that I made mine 5 ft long and 8 inches wide. It would also be possible to kind of wing this by cutting the largest possible area of the shirts within the area of the seams and then decide your scarf length based on how much fabric you have.

3. Lay out your first shirt. If you know what size you want each piece to be, cut a couple of inches larger than that so that you will have room for the stitching. Or, as I said above, cut the largest possible square/rectangle from each shirt and figure out the precise dimensions later. You can always go back and cut all the pieces to be the same size as the smallest one.

4. What do you want for the other side of the scarf? Unless you're a hipster, you might want to think about creating a scarf that actually functions (aka has the ability to keep you warm). Therefore, I chose to make one side of the scarf from t-shirts and for the other side I used warm, fuzzy fleece. If you do choose to make both sides of the scarf using t-shirts, you may want to consider keeping one of the side-seams of the shirt along the edge of the scarf since this will cut down on the amount of sewing that you will have to do.

5. Organize your shirt pieces for one side, pin them together, and sew.


6. Now that you have one side of the scarf, pin it to the other side of the scarf. Don't forget to pin it inside-out, so that the seams won't show (unless you want them to).

7. Sew both sides together and turn right-side out. Sew the remaining side.

This is a different scarf than the ones that I used for the instructions.
I finished this scarf, but do not have pictures of how to do it and I have
pictures of how to do the other scarf, but I have not finished it.

Two happy people + 1 lovingly made scarf

Instructions on my mom's j-crew/anthropologie-like t-shirt will be for the next post. Until then...

- E