Dimensional Valentine Heart T-Shirt and Crystal Bracelet

Welcome to my first Valentine Day Project!  Making something new to wear is a good way to enhance your holiday enjoyment.  How about embellishing a t-shirt or making a new heart bracelet!

This easy embellished t-shirt would be a fun group or mother/daughter project.  Read on for the tutorial.

You will need:
T-shirt (long or short sleeved) or a Sweatshirt in your choice of color
Piece of fabric about 12" square in a contrasting/coordinating color
Sewing machine, thread, straight pins

Step 1:  Take a sheet of paper and fold in half.  Draw a half heart shape and cut out the heart shape.  (I taped some extra paper to the bottom of an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper to make it 2" wider)

Step 2:  Lay the paper heart onto the t-shirt to see if it is the size you want.  My heart shape is about 11" wide x 10" long

Step 3:  Pin your paper pattern to some cotton fabric and cut out the shape.  This will be the fabric which shows through the snips in the t-shirt.

Step 4:  Turn the t-shirt inside out and pin the heart shape in place, RIGHT side facing down.  In the pink example, I drew diagonal lines spaced 1 inch apart which I will sew on.  In the red example, I sewed free hand.

Step 5:  Sew around the perimeter of the heart shape (leaving 1/4" seam allowance, being careful to not catch in the sleeves or other shirt parts.  (Use bobbin thread that matches the shirt.)

Step 6:  Now sew diagonal lines about 1" apart (doesn't have to be exact). 

Step 7:  Turn the shirt right side out.  Here you can see the stitching because I sewed with white bobbin thread so you could see it but when you do it, use matching thread.

Step 8:  Pull the knit shirt up a bit and snip a little hole, being careful not to snip the backing fabric.  Proceed to make "plus" shape cuts in each stitched box, as shown.

I've run my hand across the design which pushes back some of the cuts to reveal the fabric which has been sewn on inside.

Step 9:  Now is the fun part!  Wash and Dry your t-shirt and this will cause the knit part to curl back and reveal the fabric you've sewn on creating a dimensional looking design.

I also strung up some beads to make a bracelet.  The key is using a crimp bead to attach the toggle clasps to each end.  Rather than doing my own tutorial, I found this video tutorial which is very similar to the way I made these so here is the link:  http://keepsakecrafts.net/blog/2012/10/19/pandora-style-glass-bead-and-crystal-bracelet-video-tutorial/

I'm linking up with Elaine at Summercrafter in presenting these Valentine Projects/Tutorials.  Thanks Elaine!  

Elaine has a Valentine Project Tutorials Flickr page for you to upload your projects to so we can all see each others!  Here's the link:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/2464674@N25/