For the next two years, we will upcycle, style, and repair 100 t-shirts with FOR KEEPS; give new life to an old t-shirt. Turn it into a sustainable statement. For t-shirt # 13,
I want to share my favorite upcycle idea of the last few months. And it’s not just my favorite…
Do you remember our upcycled t-shirt # 4? It was a few embroidered patches on a baby shirt. Check it out here! It looks very cute, but was a lot of work to make. It actually took several people a few hours to embroider those. So the last few months I had been thinking about this:
Would it be possible to turn vintage embroidery into a patch?
Let’s try. What do you need?
- Vintage embroidery (I found a cute embroidered piece at the local thriftstore)
- Iron on bond or fabric
- Glue, I prefer to use transparent, quick drying type.
- Sharp pair of scissors
- An item you want to patch up &
- Thread (and if you want textile glue) to make sure the patches stay where they are needed.
Part 1. Cut it out
Go to a local thriftstore … 
and look for a piece of embroidery that has clear shapes. 
Take glue, scissors and iron on fabric 
After ironing on the fabric, cut out the shapes. Don’t forget to
put a thin layer of glue around the edges, so they won’t fray.
Part 2. Play around
This was a preloved shirt, with a few stains 
and the owner was very happy trying a few 
different ways of using some of the animals and words 
or better, use all the animals together.
Part 3. Patch up!
This was the end result, now it was time to fix all the animals.
I used a little bit of textile glue, and sewed the figures to the shirt,
with small stiches around the edges.
Part 4. The result
The happy owner of the sweater is my youngest. And as a 3,5 year old is supposed to, he never sits still. So I could not even make a proper picture. But it is his fav sweater now. And, after 5 times of washing, the patches are still in place, and looking good!
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This was not a collaboration, but one of my upcycle favorites lately. Hope you enjoyed it! If you want to join our #100greenstatements challenge, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
x An!