Sewing for a first birthday gift...

 

Next Sunday afternoon I am off to a sweet little girl's first birthday party...so today I embellished this little t-shirt as her gift. This is such a quick and easy way to appliqué and create a personalised gift.

Before starting the appliqué, I satin-stitched a small circle onto one of the fabrics to form the centre of the flower. I had thought about using a button, but didn't have any that provided a nice contrast with the fabric that I had chosen from my stash.

Then I drew the two sections of the flower onto vlisofix (also known as bond-a-web). This is essentially double-sided fusible interfacing. You draw/trace your pattern onto the 'paper'-side of the interfacing, and then iron it onto the reverse side of your fabric.

Then it is simply a matter of cutting out around your shape...

... peel off the remaining paper section....

...turn it over and position it onto your fabric (the t-shirt in my case), and iron into place.

Then you just use some embroidery thread to blanket-stitch around the shape - this helps to secure the appliqué and provide the edge with a nice finish. I used matching DMC embroidery thread, using two strands for the embroidery.

and voilà...a close-up of the completed product. Now just to hope that Scout (or more to the point, her mum) likes it!

I hope your are all enjoying your weekend...the sunshine has made a long-overdue appearance here in London (after a week of unseasonably cold weather and periods of torrential rain)...

...but here is a glimpse of twilight from Southbank on Friday night (taken in between the showers). I was here twice last week - firstly to see She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre on Wednesday (an excellent production - if you're London-based it is well worth a visit), and then on Friday night to see the Vocal Orchestra as part of the Udderbelly Festival...but it is the sights like this one above that is always such a timely reminder of how fortunate I am to live in such an amazing city!