Hello Kitty Tee - Fabric painting mini tutorial

Remember the McQueen Tee, I showed last week. While it was hung on our wall waiting for the fabric paint to dry, little munchkin made a lot of fuss about wanting to have that one for herself. We had a hard time explaining to her that it wasn't meant for her. ( How do you reason with a two year old?). She made it pretty clear that even though she is not throwing a tantrum, she is not liking the fact that she is deprived of the Tee she liked. At that time I promised her that I would make another one for her.

Not that she remembers it, but of course, how could I not make one for her? So here's my second go at raglan tee and fabric painting. Wanna see a close-up of the hello kitty motif?

Yep! My fabric painting in all its flaws glory.

Since some of you asked...Here's how I do it:

I basically draw the motif on the paper  and redraw and redraw until I'm happy with my sketch and its size. Then I cut it out, position it on the Tee and retrace the boundaries with a black fabric marker. I always make sure that I keep a paper or heavy cloth sandwiched between the front and back of the tee, just in case marker bleeds through the fabric. Once I trace the boundaries, I remove the paper cut out and fill in the details with marker. I just eyeball them, but if you want to be more precise you can also cut parts of motif and fit them in their place and trace them as well. Once I have sketched the whole thing, I just fill each area with fabric paints and let it dry for 10-12 hours. Once the paint dries, I redo the boundaries with black marker to make it look neater. After 24 hours iron the whole thing from reverse side to set the paint.There, painting done.

Well the munchkin doesn't care for this one. Go figure :/

The McQueen Tee

There's an absolutely adorable young man who

- Loves Spiderman

- Absolutely hates if somebody calls him a baby

- Is the only young boy in our circle of friends

- Is celebrating his birthday this week....


Making something nice handmade for him was really difficult for me because I'm mostly surrounded by girls...mostly my ideas always include...flowers, bows, ruffles, polka dots, ribbons...you get the picture.

Nothing which will be appreciated by a self respecting young man.


I bounced off several ideas in my head...finally came up with this Mcqueen Tee.
Because other than the above this young man also LOVES McQueen!!!
The front:

And the Back:

This project was way out of my comfort zone but I think it turned out cute. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the young man likes it...we will see...
If not, I'll just keep reminding myself not to refer him as baby.

Shrugged!

I was feeling a lack of nice cardigans/shrugs to wear in the summer. Here, it sometimes gets cold even in the middle of summer, so I dove into my stash of Tees from Old Navy ( I bought a bunch during their 40% off everything sale last time) and found a XXL sized Tee.
Here's what it became:

The back:

This refashion took much longer than I had expected, mainly because of rolled hems all around the edges and
also because of my reluctance to redo sleeves an armholes. Next time I won't try to sneak my way out of proper fit...it doesn't work and doing it later wastes a lot of time and makes it more error prone.
However I'm glad that finally it all worked out and my wardrobe got a much needed shrug!
Totally wearable.

Watermelon Tee

I just set out to make a simple tee. But once I added the green ribbing to the neck and armbands, I couldn't help thinking of watermelon. So I went ahead and added the applique to complete the look.
Cool...huh!