Pinterest Challenge #2 : An Easy One

You can read here and here about my misadventures in a self-imposed Pinterest Challenge from months past over at my Kitsch Designs blog.

Yep, I decided to go for it again. I know, I know. You are thinking, what is her problem? Does she enjoy making herself insane with too much to do? Adding more projects to a never ending To-Do list than any normal human could ever hope to get through? Well, I guess the answer is Yes! It keeps me motivated, albeit constantly overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted, but motivated. I am a project lover. A To-Do list checker-offer. I thrive in this madness.

So, here I go again. But, and that is definitely a big BUT, this time I am doing something manageable. And, since it’s a project I should (and really have to) be able to get through quickly, I thought I would join the Pinterest Challenge, Winter Edition going on at Bower Power and Young House Love. Because sharing what I have created with millions of people may be the best motivation out there.

On a side note, I recently discovered a whole cache of shots from both this site and my Kitsch Designs blog “pinned” over at Pinterest and was super excited to know that other people actually see what I do over here in my little ol’ world. Thanks, folks! Glad to inspire!

Back to my project. The Little Guy needs some dandy St. Patty’s Day attire for school tomorrow (he only attends Tuesdays and Thursdays), so I thought I would create a cute shirt for him to wear. This project also came about because when searching for something all I found were sweet things that were a bit too sweet for a little dude. Also, when I recently went through his old clothes to start a donation pile I realized he had lots of funny little holiday attire that got one wear and then was on to the Goodwill stack. That’s sad. So, I decided to take my inspiration piece and create a shirt he can wear specifically for the holiday, and then transform it back to a regular T. Here’s how it all went down.

Inspiration photo:

Originally from here at CafePress.com.

But this is where I ended up. I knew I wanted to create a different T and yesterday I discovered this stripey number tucked away in his drawer. Score!

After we looked through the scrap pile he decided he wanted this green lined and dotted fabric for the shamrock base. He also wanted it to be outlined in orange, his current favorite color. Later I decided to add the horseshoe since the shamrock looked naked. I nixed the whole “shenanigans” idea because I could not figure out the best way to fit all those letters onto that tiny chest space. I think this works, though for something different, fun and easily reversible.

HOW TO: I simply drew a shamrock design on paper, cut it out and traced it directly onto my background fabric with a disappearing fabric marker. Using my punch embroidery tool I outlined the design. I then drew a horseshoe design on paper, cut it out and traced it with the same marker onto yellow felt. I cut out the felt shape and using a blanket stitch, embroidered it onto the center of the shamrock. Using the punchtool again I “wrote” Lucky Boy inside the horseshoe. After all was said and done, I used some leftover fusible interfacing to help fuse the threads on the backside of the design (I feared little fingers would pick the “punch” embroidery right out). The last step was to cut out the shamrock from the background fabric, leaving about a quarter of an inch border to tuck under as I slipped stitched the patch in place. Done! Now, after this weekend, I can pull out my trusty seam ripper and remove the patch without any damage to the T-shirt underneath. Yeah!