Creative Guest: Embellished Tee Tutorial by Adventures in Dressmaking

Hi there, lovely readers at UCreate! I'm Suzannah from Adventures in Dressmaking and I'm so excited to be sharing a tutorial with you all today! I’m visiting from my blog, where I share my sewing, decorating, and crafty projects of all kinds.

I grew up around a very talented mother who makes historic clothing for museums and reenactors, so I have been sewing from a very early age. I started to really get into sewing one summer a few years ago when I made two or three sun dresses from the same variable pattern, and since then I am hooked on making my own clothes for a fraction of the cost of similar ones at Anthropologie and J.Crew!

I have branched out recently, particularly since moving into a new apartment with my fiance, and I now do a lot of home dec sewing (simple curtains, pillows, etc.) and spray paint art!

This tutorial here is great for all of you, very little sewing skills required. I'm showing you how to make an embellished tee, with a motif of your choice--I'm doing a fabric bow cutout on a white tee, but you could do anything! When I was designing it I thought how cute it would be to do Easter eggs on a little girl's tee, or blades of grass--oh, so springy and cute! The best thing is, this technique makes the tee totally washable, no problems there.
All you'll need for this tutorial is a tee or tank, a small amount of fabric of your choice, and some spray adhesive. I dug through my "old project scraps" drawer and grabbed some of the leftovers from a dress I made a couple summers ago... this fabric is from Goodwill so I have no idea how old it is or anything, but it's all cotton and I love the navy/white combo.

So let's start the tutorial!

Assemble your tee, fabric, and spray adhesive.

Think about the shape you want to use. Hearts are cute, maybe even a circle? Or you could do some sort of pattern (simple flower with circle center, rounded petals?). Again, Easter eggs are on my mind.

I'm using a bow shape, so I actually made a bow (haha!) for a pattern and cut around it.

I folded my fabric in half to make sure it was at least mostly symmetrical.

Here are my shapes laid out--I added a rectangle for the center of the bow.

Place the shape in the approximate place you want it on the tee. Do you like the shapes you've made? Now's the time to revise.

Here's the messy part. Get a nice background because this stuff gets everywhere. Lay the WRONG SIDE UP on your background area and spray.

Now, before the adhesive dries, carefully place the shapes onto the tee and press them down into place.

Note: you could use pins instead of spray adhesive. I don't recommend it, though, if you can use adhesive. It will be absolutely maddening to work with the shape when it's pinned because of the nature of the knit--eek, it makes my shoulders tighten just thinking about it!

Here's the part where a very minimal amount of sewing is required. You can do this part by machine or by hand. If you know how to do a basic running stitch, you can do this! If you have a machine, great. I recommend a zig zag stitch because it's a cute decoration that covers a good amount of the edge that could potentially ravel in the future (it probably won't, depending on the fabric you use for your trim).

Ta-da!!

Hope you enjoyed this super simple tutorial, and I'd love if you'd visit me at Adventures in Dressmaking sometime soon! I have a lot of tutorials for J.Crew and Anthropologie-inspired ruffled tee refashions, as well as fun ideas for more recycled clothing projects! And, of course, I love to share my home dec and crafty ideas and darling sundresses, as the season allows. ;)