Quick Craft: DIY Heart Shirt

Shirts with big hearts are big right now, but despite the fad I actually think they are pretty cool.

I've had a few old cashmere sweaters awaiting crafting and this was the perfect short-attention-span craft: cut out a heart, sew it on a shirt.

My husband had the idea of sewing on the heart with contrasting embroidery thread. It not only gives it some "pop," but it also adds more of a homemade touch.

Here's what you'll need:

An old sweater

A plain shirt

A large piece of paper or newspaper

chalk

Thin, double-sided fusible interfacing or Stitch Witchery

Embroidery thread

iron

large needle

1. Make a heart template to your liking. I just folded an 11 x 17 piece of paper in half and cut out a heart shape.

2. Place your heart template on the sweater and use chalk to trace the shape. Cut your shape out of the sweater.

3. Figure out where you'd like the heart to be placed on your shirt. Cut strips of interfacing or Stitch Witchery and place them on the shirt. Lay your heart, right side up, on top of the strips and fiddle around to get everything centered and flat. The photo below just shows where I placed the Stitch Witchery. In reality, the strips should not be facing up.

4. Iron the heart according to interfacing instructions, so it fuses to the shirt. This way it won't slip around when you're sewing and you won't have to worry about pins sticking you as you sew.

5. Cut a long piece of embroidery thread and straight stitch around the edge of the heart. Secure thread with a couple of knots on the inside when finished.

Ta-da!

Quick Craft! -- How to Undorkify a Sweatshirt

I've never been much for sweatshirts. The collars always seem too tight and the cuffs are too....cuffy? But lately I've been finding some really comfortable sweatshirts that look a little more flattering, such as this Lands End tunic:

Although $30 isn't a lot for a sweatshirt, a craft challenge was calling my name. Could I take a dorky thrift store sweatshirt and make it cool?

I can't tell you, but what I came up with is a lot more wearable; and it only took about 15 minutes. Hello Esprit! The epitome of awesome in the early 90s. Did you notice the double ribbing? Oh yeah, you could really work a church bake sale in this bad boy.

This is a no-sew craft, by the way.

Here, take a look again that this great shirt. Click on it for a larger view.

Materials:
1 thrift store sweatshirt in your size
1 shirt with a collar shape you prefer
fabric scissors
sewing machine (optional)
chalk

Directions:
Lay the thrift store shirt out on a flat surface, front side up. Place the shirt you like on top of it with the shoulder seams matching up as best you can.

Find the lowest part of your shirt collar in the front and mark it with chalk on the thrift shirt. Do the same with the collar shape at the shoulders. You're just using your own shirt as a guide. Remove your shirt and with the chalk draw a curve to mark your new collar shape.

Do the same with the back of the shirt.

Starting at a shoulder seam, carefully cut along your line.

Ta-da! New collar. Now you could pin under the cut edge and sew a hem around, which I did. But it looks pretty good without doing that.

For the sleeves, I just cut around the top part of the cuff, thus removing the cuff altogether. Roll up your sleeves and you're done.

Bingo boingo! Fast craft.