AMPERSAND & OWL EMBELLISHED TOPS

She has grown up quite a fair bit from the last winter so I thought her winter wardrobe could do with some new additions. 

Using the same pattern as before, the above green striped top was embellished with owl applique. I got the template online, but I have forgotten to note from which website for credit. Nonetheless, thank you! The applique is done on pink and brown felt with iron-on interfacing and finished off with close zig-zag stitches. The shiny eyes are two pink buttons.

The material is some stretch material which has been in my stash for such a long time and I am glad to have finally put a good use to it.

The above top is embellished with an ampersand sign. I just love working with punctuation marks and letters. They are very versatile and make such statement pieces.

I have learnt an easy way to sew applique with template downloaded from the computer after reading it from another blog, but I just can't remember which one(I know! I am soo..bad!). I wish I have thought about it earlier because it makes it less fiddly and more accurate.

For the ampersand, using Microsoft Word, I enlarged the ampersand to 500 points and printed only the outline to save printer ink on A4 paper. Then, sandwiched the red material on the black shirt material, followed by the A4 paper. I then pinned the sandwich in place.

It is important to set the length of the stitch to short stitch as it made it a lot easier to peel off the paper later. Too long and the stitch tend to come undone and break as the paper is peeled off.

Machine stitch, peel off the paper and cut the excess fabric around the ampersand and voila! I did finished it with a zig zag stitch but it is good without it.

My ampersand puckered a little bit as the material is quite thin which quite be easily resolved by using iron-on interfacing. Learnt my mistake!

She said that torn legging is in fashion!