Petal Tee for Spring

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Hi everyone!  It's Cheri from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar.  I think I am more anxious for spring to come than I have ever been.  I even decided it was time to work on some spring clothing.  Today I'm going to show you this top I just made for spring.  I call it the "petal tee."  It was fun and easy to create.



I bought a plain t-shirt and then got out my Tulip fabric paints.  I didn't have purple, so I used red, blue, and white to get the colors I wanted.  I used my Tulip fabric paint brushes.  I also used some lavender-colored organza, but we'll get to that later.  I put freezer paper between the front and back of the shirt so the paint wouldn't bleed through.


I started by mixing my paints to get lavender.  Then I brushed it onto the shirt in a random pattern.  I made the shapes like petals, but I didn't worry about them lookig a certain way.  They are all different shapes and sizes.


Then I kept mixing paint, creating different shades and adding more petals to the shirt.


Lastly, I took my darkest shade of purple and added some water to it.  I painted more petals and these petals looked more like watercolor.


See?  They are much more faint, but they give the shirt some dimension.


Once everything was dry and I had heat set the paint with an iron I cut out little petal shapes from my organza fabric.  These petals must be sealed so they don't fray.  All you have to do is hold them close to a flame and they will melt a bit.  Rotate the petals until the entire circumference has been melted.  (You could also use a knit fabric, which doesn't fray so you wouldn't have to worry about it.  I wanted something more light and airy so I chose the organza.)

Then  I sewed them onto the shirt, layering them over the painted petals.  (If you don't have a sewing machine you could sew them on by hand.  There weren't that many to sew - probably 10-15 petals.)


Now all I need is some spring weather......well, that and a tan :)


Thanks for reading!