Easter seems to have sneaked up on me this year. Anyone else feel this way? My Easter decorations never made it out of their box. Oops. And I had planned to make my daughter an Easter dress but I am settling for making her an Easter shirt instead. To give the shirt a little something extra (and to ease my guilt for not making my daughter her Easter dress...again), I decided to add some ruffles to the back of the shirt. I LOVE how the shirt turned out...very boutique-y and super cute. I really like the mint colored fabric that I used too, although my daughter took some convincing ("But it's not pink!").
This shirt was extremely easy to make and I was able to make it during my son's nap time.
Materials:
-Shirt
-Fabric of choice
-Heat n Bond (Wal-Mart always seems to have this...I never have much luck at JoAnn's)
-One yard of lace
-7/8" ribbon for bow
-1 1/2" ruffled eyelet lace (I used almost the whole 4 ft. roll)
-lightweight iron-on interfacing
-glue gun and sticks
1. Apply the Heat n Bond according to the package instructions. I absolutely ADORE this product. It is so simple to use and it bonds really well. Run out and buy some right now if you have never tried it. Soo much easier than the other bonding products that I have used.
2. Either using your Silhouette or a trace-and-cut method, cut out your bunny shape. I found mine online by Googling "bunny outline".
3. Apply it to your shirt.
4. Cut out a piece of the interfacing that will cover the shape of the bunny and iron it on the wrong side of the shirt. This helps stabilize the shirt and prevents the knit fabric from stretching when you sew it.
5. Stitch around the bunny. I like to use a straight stitch instead of the traditional zigzag. I am a rebel like that.
6. To make the bunny's tail, run your lace through your machine using the longest stitch length.
7. Pull the bottom thread and gather your lace so it looks like this. With your sewing machine back on a regular stitch length, sew along the bottom of the lace (along the same seam line) to hold the gathers in place.
8. Starting at the end, apply a small dot of hot glue and begin to roll the lace around itself. Keep rolling and applying hot glue.
Try and keep the bottom as flat as possible so it will lay nicely on your shirt.
Roll all the lace around until it forms a nice little pouf. Be sure to secure the end well.
9. Place the lace tail on the bunny and when ready, hand sew it down. I waited until I finished the back before I sewed the tail down.
10. Before starting on the back, cut out a piece of the interfacing and apply it to the inside back of your shirt where your ruffles will be. To begin the ruffled back, cut 8-9 inches (depending on how big your shirt is) of your ruffled eyelet lace and pin then sew it down close to the bottom of the shirt.
11. Cut another length of lace about an inch shorter than the row below. I kind of angled my cuts so the ends of the lace matched up to the row below it. Pin it a little above the bottom row and sew it. I just eyeballed the distance between the two rows.
12. Keep cutting the eyelet lace an inch shorter than the row below it and attaching it above.
13. Do this until the last row of lace is 2 inches long.
14. Make a bow using your ribbon and hand sew it on. You can either burn the edges or use Fray Check to seal the edges of your ribbon.
And now here come the adorable pictures of my little bunny wearing her Easter shirt. She really warmed up to the mint green color, especially after I put her in some pink pants.
Now we are ready for the Easter hunt this weekend! Bring on those eggs!
Linking up with these lovely parties:
