Stitchin' Alabama-Style

Since we moved, my sewing table has returned to its original role as breakfast nook table. So my sewing machine has been gathering dust in the upstairs closet while I've been itching to do something creative. I've seen lots of reviews of the projects in this book

and decided I wanted to give the reverse applique a try. The designer's story is very interesting--I won't go into it in this post, but you can read about it here. She has made this reverse applique technique into an art form, and even makes wedding dresses using the technique. I'm not nearly as ambitious, so I just went to Old Navy and picked up a new turquoise t-shirt, and used another old t-shirt that I had at home.

The materials (the ones I bothered to photograph--this project was done in snatches of time, so the photos aren't very complete):

T-shirt, stencil (from the Alabama Stitch Book, which I checked out from our public library--I traced the stencil and then shrunk it on our scanner and used it twice for this design), button and carpet thread, and some beads for fun.

Step 1 is to stencil the design onto the t-shirt.

Step 2 is to cut enough knit fabric from the second shirt to cover the stenciled area, then pin it to the back of the stenciled design. Step 3 is to hand-stitch around the border of the stenciled design--I beaded every other leaf to add a little sparkle. Here's a picture of the shirt completed to this point:

I should mention that there is a fun part in the book about "loving" your thread to prevent tangles and twists--very sweet and it works well (you'll have to read the book for that part). Also, I found this tutorial on making a knot--much easier than tying a regular double knot.

Step 4 is to cut out the top layer of stenciled fabric, leaving approximately a 1/8-1/4 inch border.

And here's the finished product:

Well, almost finished. The last step is to cut the excess backing (cream) fabric--I was so excited to try the thing on that I didn't do that initially, so you can see a little line in the picture. What do you think? My favorite designs on the website are more tone-on-tone (creams on white or light pink). I was a little limited in t-shirt color choice by Old Navy--lots of bright tones.

There are many more projects in the book, including a skirt made exclusively from extra-large t-shirts handsewn together and reverse-appliqued--I may have to try it the next time we clean out John's t-shirt drawer! I also think this might be fun to do a kid's t-shirt, using other applique shapes (maybe a large flower for Anna). Thanks to some blow-out poops, I have a surplus of colorful knit onesies that can't be worn so maybe I can salvage some fabric from those.

Overall, this was a quick project (took about 3 of Will's naptimes) and satisfied my need to sew something. And thanks to a trip to Ikea yesterday, I now have a new sewing table so the machine is back in business. :-)