birthday number shirt tutorial.

A while back, I saw a blog post about a mama who made her kids a fun shirt for their birthday, telling the world how old they were that year. The idea stuck with me. I made one for my niece's first birthday. Another sweet little girl in my life had a birthday last week, and I made one for her too.

I used the reverse applique technique, and I'm just in love with it. I'm working on a few more shirts using this technique. For this one, I took pictures as I went along to show you how I did it. It's so easy! And you don't even need a sewing machine.

Here's what you need:

store-bought t-shirt sized to fit the birthday kid

coordinating fabric of your choice (can either be knit or woven - I used woven for this project but have used knit for others and both work just fine)

thread - either craft/button thread or thick cotton floss

needle in a size to work with thread

iron

lightweight heat and bond

number template sized to fit your shirt

water soluble fabric pen

spray bottle with water

 

Ok, here we go:

Start out by creating your number template. You could use a stencil or even freehand it. I picked a font I liked in my word processing program and enlarged it. To make it the right size, I ended up enlarging it on a photocopy machine.

Cut your fabric to correspond with your number template, making sure it is about one inch larger all around than the template.

Iron your t-shirt and fabric.

For the next step, I did this the hard way (by placing the template between the front and back layers of the t-shirt and then tracing the number onto the front of the shirt - see photo below).

It would be much easier to just cut around the number on your template, center it on your shirt, and then use the fabric pen to trace around the number.

Here's a closer picture of the tracing:

Next, take your contrasting fabric,

and center it under your traced number (between the front and back layers of t-shirt):

Pin the fabric to secure it to the front of the t-shirt, making sure the contrasting fabric stays flat and doesn't pucker:

Starting from the inside, use running stitches to sew around the traced number:

Turn your shirt inside out and trim the contrasting fabric just outside of your stitching. This is what mine looked like when I was finished:

Trim any longer threads (I didn't photograph this step).

Next, take a small pair of scissors,

and carefully pulling the t-shirt fabric away from the contrasting fabric, make a small cut in the t-shirt fabric.

Starting at the cut you just made, use your scissors to cut over to the edge of the number, and cut around the inside of your stitches. Cut about 1/4 inch away from your stitches. Because knit fabric doesn't fray, you don't need to do anything else to finish these edges.

This is what mine looked like after cutting:

Use a spray bottle to wet the fabric, which will remove any ink markings.

Let the shirt dry.

:: I didn't take photos of the following steps - so sorry - but I will add them as I complete another shirt. ::

Turn your shirt inside out. Carefully cut away the excess contrasting fabric around the outside of your stitches - leaving about 1/4 inch of fabric outside the stitches.

Put the interfacing over the number/contrasting fabric and trace around it, about 1/4 inch outside the edges of the contrasting fabric. This is so the interfacing will completely cover the contrasting fabric and your stitching. Make sure that the silky side is up and the knobby/glue side is against the shirt.

Using your tracing as a guide, cut out the interfacing.

Carefully position the interfacing over the number/fabric on the inside of the shirt.

Follow the package directions to secure the interfacing to the shirt (you will use your iron).

This is the inside of my shirt when I was finished:

And you're done!

Please let me know if you have any questions or if anything isn't clear. Happy sewing!

Comments

[Mad]

LOVE it! This is a neat way to do it. I'm going to try and make one of these for Ian. His birthday is coming up!

[Cathy P]

I am a total newbie at sewing - well I've made a few hand-stitched items but have not done any machine-stitching yet. I really love this idea (no sewing machine required!). My youngest turn 2 and I want to try this idea for her birthday party. TY!

[Mama Brooke]

A friend sent me the link to your tute last week & I just finished trying it out for the first time on birthday dresses for sisters turning 1 & 3. Absolutely loved using the woven with the knit! I machine sewed the numbers on for time's sake, but I adore how your hand stitch one looks and will have to try this next time. I'm a big fan of easy to read and follow directions, with photos and simplicity and your tute was just this, so thank you for sharing your delightful tips! My son will have the most one of a kind gifts to give at the party tomorrow! :)

[LeShele Silas-Armour]

Thanks! I will try this week! I envision all our January babies in the family taking a cute photo with their new shirts!

[Tarah]

That is so cute....I have tried appliqués before but I am not very good on a sewing machine. But thankfully I do hand sew quite a bit, so thank you for sharing! What size or style of thread did you use or prefer to use?