He Loves Me – Valentine’s Shirt

Well I have had a blast doing Blog Spa with Elizabeth! Last week was so fun!

So now we’re back into our regularly scheduled programming – which is not very regular I must say. :)
I mentioned before Blog Spa that I had some fun ideas to share with you for Valentine’s Day – so here is the next one!

I wanted to make a shirt for Valentine’s Day. Something sweet and “Valentine-y” but not something that I was limited to wear only for a few days once a year. (I don’t have any problem with that – I just don’t have the closet space to store clothes for every holiday.) I wanted something subtly Valentine-y. Yes. I just said that.

Here’s what I came up with!

My sweet friend Emily, from Frilly Details had sent me a tutorial idea on the request page back before Christmas – which I loved but I just didn’t have time to do. It was for this cute Christmas shirt at Target.

It was a plain white t-shirt with a white ribbon or chiffon ruffled and stitched on for the words. Nice and simple but oh so cute!

I switched it up a bit and went with the whole “He Loves Me, He loves me not, he loves me” idea with a flower for Valentine’s Day – only I shortened it. Because I don’t have to guess, I know he loves me. :)

Ready for a tutorial?

You’ll need:

• T-shirt
• Assorted Ribbon. I used about 7 yards for the white (definitely an estimate) and maybe 2 yards for the cream on the flower
• Freezer paper

This is a pretty similar process to my Ribbon Flower T-shirt. You probably haven’t seen that though because I think maybe 11 people were reading my blog then. :) Maybe less.

Start by ironing on a piece of Freezer paper to the wrong side of the front of your t-shirt. Place the shiny side of the freezer paper down on the fabric and iron it – it will stick to the fabric.
This is to stabilize our shirt. If we didn’t do this, when we sewed the ribbon on the t-shirt would stretch out and look funky.

PS – this was my last piece of freezer paper and I am now out. That is on par with running out of milk in this house. Must. Buy. More.

Turn your shirt right side out. Draw out what you would like to write. I wrote “he loves me” and drew a flower. But it would also be cute to write out “love” in different languages, or whatever you want really!

For a marking pen – I used a Marvy Disappearing Ink marker that I picked up at a quilt shop. The marker says that the ink disappears within 2 – 14 days. Um. Not in my case. More like 2 – 14 minutes. Not really – but it starts disappearing within an hour or two. I like that it disappears so completely – but if I am not going to finish my project on the day I’ve started – I don’t use it. I switch to the blue Mark-B-Gone that I get at Joann’s. That one stays longer but is also harder to get out and sometimes it returns. So neither are ideal. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Ok – onto sewing. I started with a 10 yard roll of white 3/8″ ribbon. I used about 3/4 of it I think.

Run a gathering stitch down the center of the ribbon. Put your sewing machine on the longest stitch length and sew down the center, leaving long ends at the beginning and end of the thread.
I stopped and started my stitch a few times since the ribbon piece was so long. I didn’t want my gathering thread to break in the middle. Hold the ribbon and pull gently on one of the ends of the thread (either the top or the bottom, it doesn’t matter which). This will gather up the ribbon. You don’t want the gathers too tight for this.

Start with the end of the ribbon and your first letter. Turn the ribbon under just a bit so the cut end is covered by the ribbon. Begin sewing your ribbon on, following your marked lines.
Fold the ribbon under at the end of the word, like you did at the beginning.

Continue sewing your ribbon onto your other words. Your shirt will become pretty wrinkled because of the freezer paper. Just make sure it doesn’t pucker under the ribbon. Also make sure you are pulling the rest of the shirt out of the way and you don’t sew over it accidentally. Ahem.

See? Wrinkly. :)

I wanted the petals of the flower to be just a bit different than the writing. I used a sheer ivory 3/8″ wide ribbon.

Follow the marked lines for this as well, but at the curves, turn the ribbon at angles to follow the lines.

For the center of the flower, switch back to the ruffled white. Sew that in the center of the flower in a spiral, so that your spiral gets smaller and smaller and covers the center of the flower.

Turn your shirt wrong side out – it’s time to remove all the freezer paper.

Start by tearing off the big pieces around the edges. Work closer and closer to your stitching. When you get to the stitching, pull gently – if you pull too hard you can pull out or distort your threads. It helps to place your finger on the seam and pull gently with your other hand. This will help hold the stitching in place.

Once you have all the freezer paper off, turn it right side out and press out all your wrinkles.

Now you have a cute shirt for Valentine’s Day that you can wear year round!

What do you think? Subtly Valentine-y? ;)