ONE! We made it, the Bubba is one years old as of yesterday! I am so sad my little big man (he entered the world at over 10 lbs) is getting so big so quick. He walked for the first time yesterday! He can mimic sounds, laughs, climbs on anything and everything. His personality is really starting to show and I just love watching him and his big sister. She loves him so and has truly been a big helper both during my pregnancy and this first year. Always quick to help, grab a diaper, pick up the tossed water or toy. She's been such a blessing. I digress....
For my and my sister's first birthday my Mom made us this cute 3-D bear cake. When P turned one she suggested we do the same for her, so we did and we iced it in "Care Bear" fashion. For Bubba we vacillated on whether or not we'd have time to make it. My Mom is in Alaska and was only able to fly out the day before Bubba's bday so we had little time to make the cake. I decided we'd make the cake but buy ready made frosting, and since he's a little man thought a "grizzly" cake would fit the bill. I knew I wanted to make him a special shirt too. I haven't been able to experiment with Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) yet and knew this was the perfect time to try. I am still growing my "boy" print fabric stash but just bought some super soft double brushed poly in a classic red buffalo plaid and knew it would be perfect for Bubba's first bday outfit!
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| P with her "Funshine" Bear cake. |
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| Bubba and his grizzly! (We changed his shirt because we knew he'd destroy it with cake) |
I whipped up a
Patterns for Pirates (P4P)
Jolly Roger Raglan (this smallest size I've made to date) and matching slouchy beanie from Knitpop's DBP
Buffalo Plaid (I linked to the Ivory as the red is sold out) and
solid black.
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| Since it was a new size I needed to trace out the pattern again. Luckily small sizes are pretty quick! |
The shirt went together quick as I have made several of these but the neckband gave me a bit of a problem. I hate when they pull funny and everyone of the these I have made does that. I think I need to adjust the neckband length, but that's for another time. I wanted to top-stitch to give it a finished look but I broke all my smaller width twin needles and when I used my really large width twin needle it created "tunneling". Basically you can see a ridge between the two lines of sewing. I pulled out my seam ripper and went to work taking that out. Thankfully I used a dark blue on the underside so I could easily see the stitches. This was a happy mistake but I might continue to do this in the future because if it had been black it would have been a NIGHTMARE!
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| Tunneling = No Bueno |
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| You can see the navy blue zig zag stitch on the underside. |
Once I ripped out the top stitching I went back with a long straight stitch and finished off the neck.
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| Just needs the hem and sleeves finished! |
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| Sometimes creating means distracting others. Here P is working on her own illustrated book of Pocahontas. |
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| Nifty seam guide tool. It's magnetic and can be positioned anywhere on a metal plate to give you a hard seam line. |
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| No guess work here, just rest the edge of the garment against the guide! |
Since my twin needles were broke I did a faux double stitch. Somehow I still had enough stretch in the neckband even though I top-stitched with a straight stitch but lost all stretch in the hem...I know this can happen but since the neckband worked out I was hopeful. Oh well. I looks nice and if the seam pops I can just redo it with the correct twin needle!
Next up was the fun part....HTV!!! I designed the graphic in Silhouette Studio. I tend to read up on things ALOT before I attempt them...I followed the default settings for cutting the HTV and had zero problems.
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| Cutting the HTV. |
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| When it first comes off of the machine you can barely see the cut, but it was perfect. |
I have only ever cut and weeded adhesive vinyl, I asked lots of questions on the Facebook forums and was directed to use the
Siser Easy Weed HTV. It was a DREAM. So so so easy to weed the design!
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| Weeding the design. I made it pretty simple on purpose! |
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| All weeded! |
Next up was applying the vinyl to the shirt. I'll admit I was pretty nervous to do this. I don't own a heat press so I knew I would have to use my iron and I know that can be difficult. I put my wooden cutting board on the floor so I could put all my weight on the iron (one of the many tips I read). I followed the direction on the vinyl and kept checking to see if I could "see" the fabric texture through the design. That is when you know the two are bonded.
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| Success! |
It worked! Once it's bonded you can't even tell it's something I adhered using my iron. I haven't washed the shirt yet with the vinyl but I am so impressed so far. My only issue was that I didn't click "weld" on my letters (making them one object) and so if you look closely you can see an outline of the end of each letter...drives me nuts but live and learn.
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| If you look closely you can see the non-welded letter ends....grrrrrr. |
I love how this turned out. We got so many cute pictures of our mountain man and I already have about a million more ideas using HTV, eep!
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