Homemade Tshirts To Go With Homemade Shorts

Olivia and Samantha LOVE their summer shorts (read about them here and here).  I thought it would be nice if they had some coordinating t-shirts to go with them.  I started with some inexpensive plain white t-shirts from Amazon.

I then used fabric pens and stencils to draw the main picture on the t-shirt.  These are the supplies I used.

The Stencil 201 book by Ed Roth is brilliant.  The front section is full of loads of different ideas for how you can use stencils, and the back section is filled with 25 high quality, reusable stencils.  For this project I used masking tape to hold the stencil in place on the t-shirt, and fabric markers to draw the picture.  I also used some scrap card inside the t-shirt to make sure the ink didn't go through to the back fabric.  The fabric pens I prefer are SetaSkrib.  You can get cheaper ones, but they don't last as well.

Once I had drawn the stencil image, I then used double sided iron on fabric adhesive (Vliesofix) and some fabric scraps to create bird silhouettes.  I tried using my machine to appliqué around the birds, but the needle got jammed.  My machine is still quite new, so I'm not sure if it jammed because of the fabrics, the needle or my inexperience.  In the end I did a tiny blanket stitch around the edge by hand.  It worked out really well.

Here's are a couple of close ups, so you can see stencilled appliqué better.

The t-shirts were a big hit, and have been worn several times already.  They've also been through the wash several times.  The ink hasn't run, or faded at all.  I didn't set the ink using the iron, because I've found that it can change the colour.  I just made sure it had dried for a couple of days before I washed it.