(iCandy & tutorial) frayed cutout applique shirt for Valentines Day!

I do not normally make things for holidays, {Bah Humbug} well, except Halloween, but in honor of our new blog I thought I would make my four-year-old's day and join in the holiday love.  I told her yesterday morning I would make her a Valentines Day shirt and she said she wanted to wear it right now to school, which started in 20 minutes.  I said that I hadn't made it yet.  She said, "Make it right now real quick."  I told her the pink shirt that we were using was dirty and I was washing it.  She didn't look too convinced, and then I pulled out the big guns: "Why don't you wear it next week for your Valentines Day party!"  This distracted her and we began a conversation about the party.

So after she was off to school, I started on the shirt.  {While I was caught up in the making, my one-year-old ate a marker... awesome!}

My future model {who loved the shirt, by the way}

Want to make one?  Here's how:

Step 1: Find a shirt that you want to use.  Measure to see how big your applique needs to be.

Step 2: Draw or print out an image in the correct size.  You can use a photo editing software to resize the image to the correct size that you measured above.  I use Photoshop Elements but you can you Picassa, which is free.  Make sure that the lines are dark.

For this type of applique, I use a piece of gauze fabric.  This fabric is the best for this sort of thing.  You will want to use a light color so you can trace your image, unless you have a light box, or I guess you could tape it on a window...but that is too much work for me, so I use white or cream.

Step 3: Trace the lines of your image onto the gauze.  I used a disappearing ink fabric marker, but you can also use pencil.

Step 4: Cut out your image and pin onto the shirt.

 Step 5: Sew on top of your lines that you drew. 

 This is what it will look like when you are done.

Step 6: Cut on both sides of your stitches, about 1/8th of an inch away from stitching.

 Step 7: Clip into corners

 Step 8: Cut threads on inside of shirt

 This is what it will look like when finished cutting

When you are at this point, just wash and dry your shirt, which frays the gauze and shrinks it up.  You may need to wash and dry twice to get the best effect.  If you have any thick parts that look funny, after the first wash/dry cycle, just clip a little closer, and it should come out fine.  Have fun, there are so many things you can do!