3D Flower Tee Tutorial

Sometimes I tend to take things just a little overboard...as a case in point, just look at what I sewed for Sam the other night...

see what I mean?  A humongo 3D beaded flower appliqued tee.  

Sam and I L.O.V.E. how this shirt turned out. We both especially like how the wavy petals and leaf give the shirt dimension.

Want to make one? 
But first a disclaimer: I want to apologize for not taking enough pictures for some of these steps...not only do I tend to go overboard at times but I also tend to forget to take pictures along the way when "crafting". So if you have questions, please email me...
3D Flower Tee Tutorial

I started out with 3 tee shirts: a plain long sleeved thrifted shirt and two patterned tee shirts that I already had.  The floral one should look familiar to you...it's the same as the one I used for this shirt here. The striped one was already in my stash of shirts that no longer fit Sam.

Making the flower applique

1. Cut your tee across at the arm pits.  

Now you should have a tube from the bottom part of the tee.  

2. Cut down the sides of this tee tube. You should have two pieces. Use fusible web to fuse these two pieces together...WRONG SIDES to each other.  

3. Make a flower pattern using freezer paper.  You can free hand it or do like me, find an image on the web, copy and paste to a word document and enlarge...trace your image onto the dull side of the freezer paper.

4. Iron on the freezer paper, shinny side down, onto the fused fabric. Let the fabric cool down and using the outline of the flower, cut out the flower piece. 

5. Now find a plate that is large enough to cover up most of the center of the flower.  Using said plate, make a pattern on freezer paper.  Iron on the freezer paper to right side of fabric and then iron on fusible web to the wrong side of fabric. This circle is only one piece of fabric and not two like the flower part. Once cooled, cut out circle. Now you have the second part to your applique. 

6. Repeat the above process but now use a smaller plate to make the inner circle. Now you should have a flower and two different sized circles.  

Assembling the flower applique 

7. Lay down the flower piece and lay the bigger circle on top, making sure to center it.  Be sure to have the wrong side, the one with the fusible web, down. Iron on that circle to the flower.  Now repeat with the smaller circle.

8. Now that the flower is all fused together, zig-zag around all the edges. Use a tight zig-zag stitch. I used the shortest stitch length and the longest stitch width to get a nice tight zig-zag. I also used the gap on the sewing foot as a guide while sewing the edge.  It works every time.  

9.  Sew on beads if you want.  Since this fabric had small flowers with a blueish center, I just sewed on a bead at each of the blueish centers.

10. Use freezer paper and draw out a stem and leaf. Follow the steps 3 and 4 to make, cut and fuse the stem to your shirt.  

Once fused, zig-zag the edge of the stem to the shirt.

11. For the leaf, follow step 2...it needs to be double-sided. Zig-zag the leaf edges. Pin the leaf onto the shirt and sew a straight stitch down the middle of the leaf onto the shirt.

12. Now position your flower onto your shirt. Pin it securely and

 sew a straight stitch right along the inner edge of your zig-zag stitch. Again, use the gap on your sewing foot to guide you.

*Make sure to alternate your fabric patterns when cutting out the flower, circles, stem and leaf so that your shirt has a contrasting pattern to it. 

This has been the hardest tutorial I have ever written because of the lack of photos, but I hope it made sense to you.  If not, please just email me and I will try to clear it up for you.