FroYo Shirts: Guest post with Come On, Ilene!

I found Come on, Ilene! just recently while blog stalking surfing and ever since, I've been hooked. She bakes, she sews, and she had the GREATEST bicycle-themed wedding that you have to check out. The tutorial that really caught my eye was for adorable FroYo shirts she made - I just love all the bead "sprinkles"! I'm so glad to have Ilene here sharing it with you today so you can make one too!

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Hi! I am ilene from Come on, ilene! Thanks for having me here, Jen! I am honored to be guest posting today. My blog is much like Jen's - full of tutorials, recipes and crafts. It's basically a collection of whatever is cooking up in this crazy little head of mine. Here are a few of my most popular posts (click to see full tutorials):


Today, I am sharing with you one of my favorite projects- how to sew frozen yogurt appliques!



We had some friends who were contemplating opening up a frozen yogurt business so I wanted to surprised their daughters with cute little froyo shirts! I'm totally loving this frozen yogurt fad, I could eat a large cup for breakfast! If only froyo stores were open that early. There is a place near our old house in Boston that had this awesome mojito-flavored froyo. Pile mochi on top and I am in heaven!

The froyo design was appliquéd onto plain T-shirts. This is a great project for using up scraps of fabric and mismatched "orphaned" buttons. I didn't have a pattern so I just drew one up with a sharpie. I tried hard not to make it look like a big cup of doo-dee:



Cut out the pattern pieces with scissors:



Then trace the pattern onto your fabric using disappearing ink:



To help the fabric pieces stick to the shirt, I like to back them with Heat N Bond iron on adhesive. You just iron on the paper-backed adhesive onto the back side of the fabric:



Then peel off the paper. Cut out the pieces and iron onto the shirt. The heat will activate the adhesive and bind the fabric to the shirt:



For the spoon, I cut out a silver piece of silhouette heat transfer material and ironed it on.

Now comes the tricky part, embroidering all around the design. This requires lots of patience and slow stitching. I used a zig-zag stitch all around:



Here is a great tutorial on how to appliqué. It definitely takes some practice!

Now comes the fun part! Adding buttons, swavorski crystals and beads as "toppings"! The girls love all things sparkly, so I wanted to add some bling!





And that's it! Two unique froyo shirts for two very special sisters!



Thanks for having me, Jen!! For more of my ideas, come visit me at Come on, ilene!

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How cute are these shirts? Frozen yogurt is all the rage in my town (I can think of 4 separate frozen yogurt places within 7 miles of each other), and I'm definitely a sucker for ice cream myself, so this project caught my eye right away.

Thanks for sharing, Ilene! Go check out Come on, Ilene! and see her other great projects, I'm sure her blog will become one of your new favorites too.