... and Embroidered T-Shirt Art

Halloween is over... but Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is still going on so what better time to share this project to make a unique piece of artwork. Of course can be used for any idea / theme but I have been holding onto it for now for obvious reasons ;)

I was sorting through our clothes for charity shop or upcycling potential and I came across an old T-Shirt of Mally's. It had faded a lot, but I loved the design on it and wanted to preserve it in some way. I know for a fact that I am not ready to tackle the T-Shirt quilts that are all over Pinterest. I also wanted to practise my embroidery and an idea came to mind - make a little piece of art!

I forgot to take a picture of the T-Shirt before I cut it up, but I found this photo from our holiday to Cape Town in April 2012 (see Table Mountain in the background?!)

I cut the main part of the picture out (of course remembering to keep the scraps for other projects!!) As the design on the T-Shirt was so detailed, I simply chose which parts I wanted to embroider over, and selected matching threads. As the T-Shirt material is so stretchy, a hoop was essential.

Then using a variety of stitches (none of which I know the real names for and most of which I sort of made up!) I stitched away. 

I could have gone over every bit of the design but wanted to do it partially and I really like how it turned out.

I finished off by ironing, stretching and stapling it to some mount board. I haven't decided whether to frame it but it is definitely going up in the house somewhere!

Do you have any old T-Shirts that you could turn into art?

We are linking up to these parties!