Family Applique Shirts: A Tutorial

When a family you love expands by one, and the new family member is a baby girl preceded by two girls, it's quite possible that said loved family doesn't need a whole lot.

I suggest laying the question before the Mama. What do you need?

After discussion, we decided on some family matchy-matchy. Well, I think Mama was just thinking of the girls, but I decided to include Mom and Dad as well. Sort of.

Each shirt has a reverse applique surrounded by a border of plain ole' applique normalness and a bit of stitching and accent embroidery on top.

You'll need:
shirts for each member of the family (can be all the same, for this I chose coordinating colors)
coordinating fabric (I used three prints, scrap sizes)
fusible interfacing
an air- or water-soluble marker
embroidery thread
your regular sewing gear

Start with your fresh pile of knit blank canvas.

On the right side of your fabric, draw the shapes for your reverse applique with your air- or water-soluble marker.

Using one of your coordinating fabrics, trim a scrap that will fit behind the shape(s) you've drawn with a little room around the edges. Pin it into place behind your shape. And stitch the shape.

Carefully trim out the inside of the shape, being careful not to clip any of your stitches. Knit won't fray, so the amount of room you leave inside the stitches is an aesthetic choice.

Now place a piece of coordinating fabric face-down. Place the "negative shape" you just cut out on top of it, also face down. Iron a piece of fusible interfacing on top of this. A little sammich you have now. Yummy.

Again with careful snips, cut through the sandwich around the shape, leaving a consistent border. Well, you could make it artfully inconsistent as well. Up to you.

Then trim out the original negative shape with a bit of a border inside. Like so: (ignore kid scribble)

Remove backing from the outer shape. Place around the reverse applique area and iron. Stitch the inside and outside edge down.

Now embroider a little ornament top and string coming down from the neckline. Or whatever bit of embroidery makes sense for your design, if you're not going the Christmas ornament route.

And the Dad shirt that started out plain, unadorned red? Sigh. Here it is:

Nothing. Nada. My little brain could conceive of absolutely nothing to make it coordinate, other than the original red color that works with the fabrics. But I think *he* will be happy with that.

And when you've wrapped up this project, you have a jump start on another one, with these little guys that are already interfaced and ready to be appliqued:

These fabrics are from Michael Miller's "Funky Christmas". Maybe some funky holiday photos coming my way?