Shabby Heart Valentine's Day Shirt!

My big kid LOVES holidays. They're all special to her for unique reasons. Why does she love Valentine's Day? The pinks, reds, hearts, and love! So, she needs a special shirt for the special day, right? Of course!! (If we're being totally honest here, I love holidays too!)

Last year I made her a cut-out heart shirt and matching skirt. This year, I wanted to do a little something different. Plus, I'm still on my applique kick from the pillowcases. :)

I saw this adorable giraffe shirt here and knew that was going to be my technique this year!! Super easy and so fun!

My awesome husband came across some extra plain colored long sleeved T's while organizing the girls closet (that's a Daddy job around here, ya know? :) ), and I had a bunch of leftover fabric bits from my craft show projects... It's like this little shirt was really meant to be!



This is my first real tutorial. I'm waaaay better at talking than writing, so hopefully this is easy enough to follow. :)

To start out, you'll need a shirt (got mine from ON when they do all their crazy clearance sales at the end of the season), a pattern, fabric, fusible webbing (I used Heat & Bond), thread, sharp scissors, a ruler, a sewing machine, an iron, and a pencil.

You’ll want to lay your pattern onto your base fabric (the light pink and white striped here) to determine the size of your fabric pieces. I like to have some extra to work with, so I cut my fabric pieces a good amount larger than my pattern. 

Determine how far apart you want your stitch lines to be and draw them on the back of your base piece. Ultimately, I went with 1/2 inch increments. 

Stack your fabric pieces and pin them like there's no tomorrow!

 Now stitch along all of the lines you just drew.

(I didn't go the whole way to the edges of my fabric - just as little larger than my pattern.)

Next up - cutting! You're going to cut through the top 4 layers of fabric. DO NOT cut your base fabric! Start at one edge and work your way across.

When you're done, it should look something like this -

Now we need to apply the webbing. Trace your pattern (remember to reverse it if it's directional) onto the smooth side (paper side) of the webbing. 

Then iron it onto the back of your base fabric. 

Cut it out, peel the paper backing off, and determine the placement on your shirt. Iron it in place.

Carefully zigzag stitch around the outer edge of the heart. 

In order to achieve the shabby look, you need to wash and dry the shirt a few times. 

before

after

See how the edges are starting curl up so nicely? Another round or two in the washer, and it should be fabulous! 

Linked at: 

Skip to My Lou

Vintage Wanna Bee

House of Hepworths

The Train to Crazy 

Petals to Picots