This week’s challenge for Project Run and Play is to design your own fabric.  For me this is not such a stretch, as I have a Spoonflower shop of fabric I have designed from my scribbles.  I think the current blog background I made would make a pretty fabric design, too.

Here are a few things I have designed in the past:

Pink Fairy Dress:

Trees shirt:

A not-quite-right design I made for a shirt:

This one was a painted stencil to create my own design on the fabric:

So…what to do, what to do??

I decided to try using some Decolourant (a.k.a. fabric bleach) that I had bought a good year ago.  Do you do that? Stockpile craft supplies with no project in mind?

I do.  I almost have a craft store in my craft room with all the supplies I have just waiting for projects.

This stuff works pretty fast.  I have seen similar results for sun bleaching, but that would mean the sun would have to shine for some extended period of time.  Not happening right now.

This is fairly straightforward, though time consuming.

I decided to do a simple top…Alabama Chanin style.

Simple?? Mmmmm…not really.  This top took me FOREVER.  Not really the best choice when you decide to start on Friday night for it to be done on Sunday.  I took some quality time at gymnastics and sittin’ in my chair at home to sew the front.

Then you have to cut those little pieces out.

 I guess you could say it is simple…just a lot of hand work.  Definitely not in the easy-to-make-in-one-night category.  I’m sure she appreciates all the hand-stitching I did on it.

Bwaahahahahahahaha!

This needs to be your mantra if you sew for a tween.

Just sayin’.  It will keep you sane.

Here are the steps to make the front:

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A few extra notes:

• I drew out my own design, but just search for stencil images on Google and you should find something suitable.
• When ironing, you just keep at it until it is the color you want.  A few spots got a yellow tinge to them, and I think it got too hot and burned the fabric a bit.  I was cutting those spots out anyways, so not a big deal.  It was a bit stinky, though.
• Use stable knits without a ton of stretch.  Unlike me.  It got a bit wonky because the top was a pretty stable knit and the one underneath was very stretchy and shifty.  Stay away from the shifty ones…good advice in life, too. 😉
• Be very, very careful in cutting out the pieces.  I accidentally cut my fabric underneath in a few of the tight spots.  I used a thread the same color as the knit to patch those little holes, which you can’t really see.
• I did a  reverse appliqué here, so the pieces are cutaway to show the fabric underneath.  You can do it in the reverse, though.

I only did the front of the top.  It was more than enough for something that will be lucky to get two year’s of use out of it.  It took about 4-5 hours to hand-stitch the front, and then another hour or so to cut it out.

This would be a good project to make on the sidelines of your youths summer sports.  All those hours of handstitching would help pass the time.  I think I will maybe do a corset style tank that she sells for $1,375.  It will keep my fingers busy, as I have a hard time just sitting through so many, many games and practices for baseball and softball.

So here is The Princess wearing her new shirt.

I chose the colors to match some new jeans I got for her at Justice.  The tween mecca.  They had a clearance on jeans this weekend, so I scored several pairs for her at pretty good prices.  I got them big enough so she can wear them next Fall, but I also have to fix the waistbands on most of them.   She’s on the thin side, so rarely does a RTW pair of jeans fit her in the waist.  I insert elastic in the back waistband and tack it down.  These were the only ones that fit her without alterations, though.

I’ll be making a few more shirts to match her jeans.  I like to have matchy-matchy outfits!