Pimp My Sweatshirt: Mr. Fox — Front Appliqué

You simply can’t go wrong with foxes!!! Right? 🙂 Remember that I had pimped one of my son’s shirts back in fall 2014 and made it a Rock(et) Star Shirt? At that time we also agreed on a fox that I had drawn earlier for him (on paper initially). For this so-called Mr. Fox Shirt, I appliquéd a large felt fox onto the front and stencilled smaller foxes in a repetitive pattern onto the back. One of them—the polar fox—is very special, as is my son. 😉 I especially love how I mastered to combine two techniques here: sewing appliqués and stencilling. Did you also notice that the fox at the front is shown from the front, while the foxes at the back are shown from behind…? Anyway, when I had the fox appliqué ready (steps 1 to 3), work got very busy, and I couldn’t properly continue with the shirt. However, every now and then my son wanted to talk to and play with the fox. When I finally found time to finish the shirt, he was very pleased and proud. It doesn’t take much to make a mum happy… 🙂

Here is what I did in two parts:

PART 1 – Fox appliqué on the front (see below)

PART 2 – Stencilled foxes on the back (see Part 2; coming soon)

List of Materials:

1. Plain sweatshirt (this time I bought one)
2. Felt (red, white, black)
3. Pin needles
4. Standard and embroidery scissors
5. White thread
6. Black embroidery thread and embroidery needle
7. This Fox Appliqué Pattern
8. Heat ‘N Bond or other iron-on adhesive
9. Iron
10. Sewing machine

STEP 1: Print and cut the pattern. Iron the sweatshirt.

STEP 2: Transfer the patterns onto felt. Usually, I stick a pattern onto felt using pin needles. Cut around the shapes. You will need red felt for the body, black felt for the eyes and the nose, and white felt for the belly, the cheeks, the tip of the tail, and the tips of the ears.

STEP 3: Pin all body parts in place…

 …and sew them on either manually (eyes, nose) or using a sewing machine (everything else). I used white standard thread for white parts and black embroidery thread for the black parts. I did the black parts by hand and with embroidery thread to give them a bit more structure.

STEP 4: Transfer the fox pattern (the overall shape) onto iron-on adhesive (rough side faces up) and cut it. You will end up with one piece.

Note: Iron-on adhesive is used here to prevent the finished appliqué from moving while sewing it on. In addition, it gives an appliqué more strength. It basically has two sticky sides: one is exposed (rough side) and the other is covered by a thin foil. The adhesive is first ironed onto fabric 1 (rough side shows to wrong side of fabric 1). After cooling down the protecting cover foil is removed (fingernails welcome!) and ironed onto fabric 2 (fabric-free side shows to wrong side of fabric 2).

STEP 5: Iron the fox onto the iron-on adhesive shape. Wait until the whole assembly has cooled down in order to…

 …remove any overlaps of the adhesive using an embroidery scissor. See the overlaps in the picture (where the tip of the scissors is pointing at)? Carefully remove these.

STEP 6: Peel off the foil at the back and place everything onto your sweatshirt. Iron on.

Step 7: Grab some white thread and your sewing machine in order to sew on the appliqué. 🙂 I used a straight stitch. Go carefully around the body. Like I did with the Rock(et) Star Appliqué, do not cut the threads but take a hand needle and sew them towards the back of the sweatshirt. Secure them there by making a few knots. This gives the front a neat appearance and makes the appliqué more robust.

And TADAA! The front part done. 🙂

The second part of this post is coming soon. If you like what you see on this site and have not followed this blog yet or liked Me & My Veritas on Facebook, please do it right away. Your support is highly appreciated!

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