My t-shirt was so horrible that I’m not even embarassed. I didn’t feel it was representable of anything that has to do with me at all! I was still a bit nervous knowing so many people I know would see it though..
I was looking forwards to the first task because I knew that time management would be difficult for me. I was looking forwards to not having to think, to not be creative and to just follow instructions and work as quickly as I could. When they said that we actually had to do something creative it freaked me out. Now I had to plan my time! And I had no idea of how much time I would need to finish the t-shirt, I was in a bit of a shock and had no idea how to proceed. My “safe” first task was not safe anymore…
I chose my fabric and as I don’t like wasting fabric I decided I could just iron out some of the creases at the beginning of the roll. Unfortunately that fabric did NOT want to be ironed, and in addition it got some terrible looking stains when it got wet. After trying to iron it for a while I realised I had no option, I had to cut most of my pieces out again.
Another big problem I faced was that I have never sewn in such thin jersey before. I’ve sewn in thicker jersey, which is quite fast and straight forwards and I don’t need pins as the fabric stays quite well together. This t-shirting on the other hand was very thin and the edges kept rolling in on themselves, which meant I would have needed to pin everything before sewing, something I had not planned on spending time on doing and that I didn’t have time for in the end.
My main problem was of course spending way too much time on the applique, and the ironic part is that the applique I made (which was in 5 layers, even if you can’t see that on the show) which was too complicated for the time I had wasn’t even half finished.
Here is a sketch of what I wanted it to be like:
I was going to cut around the edges of the stitching of what I had appliqued already (to make it nicer and more detailed), and then add the text “fun” on top, with a contrast of orange underneath a top layer with the same fabric as the fabric flowers underneath.
I was also considering doing a reversed applique at some point, but decided against it.
For those who are interested here is a short youtube tutorial on doing regular applique (in Norwegian by our fantastic Judge Tine Solheim) :
http://www.nrk.no/hordaland/laer-a-lappe-holet-i-yndlingsbuksa-1.12454150
This is a tutorial forfused reversed applique from “GourmetQuilter” on Youtube
Here’s a tutorial for a reversed applique where you fold under the edges of your motif (from “Professor Pincushion” on youtube
Another way to do reversed applique is by simply layering the two (or more!) fabrics you want, embroider/stitch on top, and then cut away the fabric after. Doing that will leace you with raw edges, but for some designs that can look cool. Alternatively you can sew the pattern you want with a straight stitch, then cut away your fabric close to the stitch, and then sow a really dense zig zag or satin type stitch that covers both the raw edge and your first row of stitching.
Hope you enjoy it and will have more success with it than I did with this t-shirt!
Feel free to share your own applique projects in the comments below 🙂
