What you'll need:
- An old shirt
- Scrap Fabric in a contrasting color to the shirt
- Coordinating Thread
- Heart Template (or shape template)
- Pinking Shears
- Sharp and Small Scissors (or seem ripper and regular scissors)
- Pins
- Iron
- Ruler
- Straight edge
- Fabric Marker/Pencil
I would recommend that you cut just outside the template with the pinking shears. This will give a little allowance for sewing and such. When finished with that make sure that you press the heart to give it a flat surface. You should end up with something that looks like this.
Make sure that you turn you shirt inside out and then place the hearts together this way the design is clearly visible and you don't mess the whole project up.
Then sew the two in place with roughly a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Be sure to watch for the back side of the shirt when stitching it is easy to miss and accidentally sew the front and back sides of the shirt together.
The inside of the shirt will look like this once that is complete.
The outside of the shirt will look like this.
Using your fabric marker and straight edge mark the back side of the heart with lines where you will be stitching. These should be about a 1/2 inch apart. You can do these vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Just when you are doing the lines make sure you keep them even.
Then stitch along the guide lines. When your finished the front should look something like this.
Now that the really hard part is done. I know this whole project is really too easy. You are going to use small sharp scissors and cut JUST THE TOP LAYER OF THE SHIRT between the stitches like so. You don't want to cut through both layers so be cautious as you cut.
Tip: if you don't have a pair of small scissors sharp enough for this you can do what I did and use a seem ripper to start a little hole and continue cutting with your regular scissors. Just be careful the seem ripper can poke through both layers and you don't want that to happen.
When you finish cutting each section in half between the stitches use your pinking shears to cut each edge. When you are finished it should look something like this.
This project is so easy and it only takes about an hour or so to complete. You can do it on little or no cash out of pocket because it uses items from your house! It is also versatile. You can customize the shape you would like to make and the direction of the stripes which turn out after it is complete. You can even try to cur letters and such from old shirts. I am thinking about how I will be able to create a logo like this. Enjoy creating!
