Becky's Personalized Felt Shirt

In writing this I am totally ruining a surprise for a friend, though perhaps she won't see this until her package arrives.

I wanted to make something for my friend Kara's eldest child, J.  He loves Alvin & the Chipmunks and my sister came up with the idea to make him an Alvin shirt with a big yellow 'A' on the front- like the Scarlet Letter but without the negative stigma.  I decided it was a fantastic idea, but put my own spin on it and went with a 'J' instead.  True personalization right there!

3T?!

DMC thread #307

First I picked up a long-sleeved red shirt in his size, and was sad to realize how big he's getting while I miss him growing up, living half way across the country.  I got over that part and bought some yellow felt and yellow cross-stitch thread.  I already had upholstery needles from my last project, and decided they'd be perfect for the effect I wanted with the stitching.  

Next I had to design my letter 'J'.  That was way more difficult than I anticipated!  I looked through my Mac's Font Book and didn't find anything that seemed quite right.  My plan was to print off a large letter J and use it to trace and cut my felt letter.  When I couldn't find anything I liked, I decided to do it freehand.  

See?  Font Book was absolutely no help.

Here you can see that I had to try twice.  Luckily I had the foresight to position the first J to one side of the felt, instead of cutting a big chunk out of the middle in the heat of the moment.  That allowed me to use my first J, which I liked in general, to create a slightly larger version.  I liked version two even more, so I gave my son the first version to play with.  It was a big hit.

Big J, little j, what begins with J?

I love the contrast!

I lined the J up on the shirt where I thought it would look good, and threaded my needle.  I wanted a very bold look to the stitches, so I used the entire six-stranded cross stitching thread together.  I was quickly thankful that I owned the upholstery needles, because the eye was large enough to easily thread the entire thick strand.

Positioned, check.

Threaded, check.

I was ready to stitch the letter on the shirt.  I suddenly realized that I have no straight pins (as I believe I've mentioned in a previous post).  I really need to fix that situation, but was too eager to work on my project at the time, to wait until they were in my possession.  Instead I used some clear tape to affix the felt J in its position.

Who needs duct tape when you've got gift-wrapping tape?

I decided to use a simple back stitch around the entire letter.  I left a small margin, about an eighth of an inch, as I stitched.  I love the way the thick thread looks against the felt.  As I stitched, I removed the pieces of tape.  The only problem I encountered was that the tape wanted to pull bits of the felt away from the rest, but a gentle and slow approach helped to minimize the fuzzy effect.  The needle was absolutely perfect for the fabric weights and weaves.  Stitching the boarder was fast and pretty painless, overall!

Halfway there...

Finished product!

If I were to do this again (and I probably will because it was simple and I love the result!), I'd make sure I have some straight pins on hand for a cleaner and easier project.  I might also consider checking out the world of iron-on adhesives, but for now I'm going to give myself a pass and say "Good job" for making it this far!

-Becky