Lucky In Love shirt

I've been wanting to make a St. Patrick's Day shirt for my son but I couldn't decide on what I wanted to do. Of course I put it off so long that I needed to find something that would be quick. As I was surfing the blogosphere for St. Patrick's Day ideas the other day, I was lucky enough to stumble upon these Lucky In Love printables over at Agape Love Designs.

It's already a great printable, but I thought it would make an even cuter shirt. After making one for my son, I think I might have to make one for myself! Here's how to make one for your little lucky charm.

 Supplies:

• Plain white shirt (I used a onesie)
• Black fabric paint and paintbrush
• Freezer paper
• X-Acto knife
• Green knit fabric scraps (I used an old t-shirt)
• Sewing machine and thread
• Needle and white embroidery thread
• Iron and ironing board 

Step 1: Print out the Lucky In Love image at Agape Love Designs. Use the shirt you want to use as a template for how big you would like the design to be. For a 0-3 month onesie, a 5x7 size was big enough for me. I chose to crop out the "lucky in" wording because I thought the shirt would be cuter without it.

Step 2: Trace the image onto a piece of freezer paper on the paper side. Make sure you don't draw it on the shiny or else you'll have to start over again. Trace the clover on a separate piece of freezer paper and set aside.

Step 3: Cut out the image. Place the freezer paper onto a cutting mat and use an X-Acto knife to carefully cut out your lettering. You don't need to cut out the clover. Let's ignore the fact that I did that :)

Step 4: Iron the paper to your shirt and paint letters. Using an iron and ironing board, set the heat to medium with no steam and iron your freezer paper lettering to your shirt, shiny side down. Check to make sure all of the edges of your lettering have been ironed down so paint doesn't leak outside of the lines. Also insert a piece of freezer paper, cardboard, or other protective material inside the shirt to protect it from fabric paint leaking through when you paint.

Using a paintbrush and the black fabric paint, paint neatly inside of the lettering, starting from the outside edges and moving in. Let your shirt dry for however long the bottle states. I always get too impatient and just let it dry overnight. It's always worked out fine for me.

When it's dry, peel off the freezer paper.

Step 5: Make your fabric clover. Ok so this part was a little tricky. I originally tried to cut out a clover and trace it onto my green fabric, but it was nearly impossible to see the fabric marker on the clover and even more impossible to cut out the clover. So I came up with a better idea. (There may be an easier way of doing this, but this is how I did it.)

Take the clover that you traced previously on the piece of freezer paper and pin it to 2 layers of your scrap fabric. I used 2 layers because I wanted it to have a very thick, dimensional look.

Now, carefully sew around your clover, picking up the foot and turning your image as you go to get smooth, clean lines. If you have a see-through embroidery foot, use it! Unfortunately, I don't have one so I had to wing it with my regular foot. It took a little longer because I was picking up the foot every few stitches to make sure I was sewing on the lines I drew, but it was worth it because the shape was exactly what I wanted. After you're done sewing, carefully tear the freezer paper off and cut around the edges of your clover.

Step 6: Attach the clover to your shirt. Pin the clover you just cut out to your shirt and use your embroidery needle and embroidery floss to stitch over your machine stitches. This gives the shirt a decorative look and attaches the clover to your shirt. If you'd rather skip the embroidery floss part, you could always just glue your clover to your shirt with some Fabric Fusion or something. I personally like the look of the thick embroidery floss on this project.

And there you have it! Pinch-free St. Patty's day wear!

Then again, who would want to pinch someone so cute anyway?

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