remember awhile back when i showed you how to make a glittered heart shirt?  well…. it turns out i used the wrong paint.  since it wasn’t designed specifically for fabric, over time it got a little, uh, crunchy.  and stiff.  so i hardly ever wore it.   total bummer because i loved it.  i may try it again, but next time with this paint.

but i came up with a solution!  i have been wanting to try reverse applique for awhile and i figured why not just try it on this shirt since i wasn’t really wearing it anyway?

don’t know what reverse applique is?  well, the name pretty much says it all.   standard applique is done by applying a piece fabric onto another piece of fabric.  reverse applique is done by applying a piece of fabric under another piece, then cutting away the top fabric to reveal the applique’d piece.

and if you’re new here, i like to use a lot of pictures for tutorials.  a lot.  because i want my directions to be really clear.  if you have any questions, please ask away!

unless you’re redoing a shirt that you already painted a crunchy heart on {ahem}, your steps will look a little different than mine.  first you need to decide what shape you want to reverse applique.  for an easy starter, a heart is perfect.  but you could do a leaf, flower, arrow, bird … really any silhouette thats not too detailed.  start by turning your shirt inside out (very important!).   lay out your shirt and finding the center point.  you can do that by folding it in half and pressing it with a hot iron, making a crease down the middle. (read through the first part of this tutorial for pictures and more detailed explanation)

trace your design with a water soluble fabric marker.

choose the fabric you want to have show on your applique.  i chose a heavy lace.  make sure the piece of fabric you use is large enough to cover your outlined silhouette, plus an inch or so on each side.

although you won’t see it in any of my steps, i ended up adding another layer to my applique since a sheer chested shirt turned out to be a bad idea!  i thought with a tank top under it would be cute, but it just looked funny, so i added another layer of cream fabric.  if i were to do it again, and still chose lace, i would have also cut out a solid piece of fabric to go behind the lace and applique it all on at one time.  is this getting confusing yet?

although i’m not usually a fan of pinning, you really need to do it on this project.  lay out your shirt as flat as possible (remember, inside out), with your fabric, right side down, spread flat against your design.  pin all around the edges, just outside of where you’ll run your stitches.

this is definitely a project you could do with a machine, but since i was doing this over the holidays, i had the luxury of taking my time by the fire and hand stitching with embroidery floss.  and i also love the look of the thicker thread for this project!  i used a single strand of floss for this.  doubling up for a thicker stitch could be cute, too!

a quick peek on the inside of your shirt lets you see how good its coming along!  my stitches are about an 1/8 of an inch away from my outline/glitter heart, but i would recommend doing them closer to 1/4″ out.  you can make the stitches any size you want, but the smaller you make them, the more secure your applique will be.

i started and ended my stitches with a couple knots, as you can see at the v of the heart.  super easy.

before trimming away your shirt, be sure to check your stitches from both sides to make sure you’re happy.

with small, very sharp scissors, slowly trim along your silhouette/outline/glittered heart ;)

now is the fun part!  peel back the shirt and you can see the reverse appliqued fabric underneath!

how cute is that?!

with the shirt inside out, trim the appliqued fabric down to about 1/2″ from the stitches.

easy. peasy.

this is what my shirt looked like at first…

and then i decided to add another row of stitches, and i love it even more!

 see what i mean by moving your first row of stitches closer to 1/4″ out rather than 1/8″?  once i washed the shirt it rolled and got awfully close to the edge!

 this would be a great project to try out on an old graphic tee that you want to revamp, just applique right under the graphics and cut them out entirely!  i also think this could be fun on the back of a sweater or oxford shirt.