Mom Project: "Embroidered" Heart Shirt

Sharing an inexpensive way to embellish a plain t-shirt into something "fit to wear" to a Valentine's Day Celebration.

Inspiration for this project came while doing inventory in my sewing stash and realizing I have an abundance of shades of pink and red thread. I love the hand embroidered look but do not have patience to sit down and actually do it . . . so I used the following technique and supplies to get a similar look in a lot less time.

Materials Needed:

Sewing Machine

Thread (I used 4 shades of pink/red)

T-Shirt

Freezer Paper

Cut off a small piece of freezer paper. On the dull side draw a series of nesting hearts (they don't have to be perfect - as is evident in my drawing above).

Iron the image onto your t-shirt (shiny side touching the shirt). This will keep the image from sliding around, but you can also just pin the image to the shirt (which will make it a little easier to remove once you're finished sewing).

Sew directly onto the paper and through the top layer of the shirt. I followed my lines and added an extra row of hearts between each of the drawn lines (remember, the more hearts you sew or the closer the hearts are the more work you will have later when ripping away the paper).

Once you have finished sewing your outlines, it's time to rip away the paper. Carefully tear away the paper without tearing out your stitches. This is the most time consuming part of the whole project - not hard, just takes time. I'd recommend sitting down and catching up on your favorite TV show while you do this. If you look closely you'll realize I was a little impatient and ripped out the thread at the base of the heart (back stitching may have prevented this too) but overall I think it turned out cute and I have one little girl who is more than happy to wear it. Now if I could only get her to sit still long enough to get a clear picture . . .