T-shirt Time

Ages ago I borrowed a friend's Silhouette Cameo cutting machine and mindful that I need to give it back soon, I'd thought I'd give it another whirl.

I bought some A4 sized sheets of stretch iron-on vinyl from PicturePerfect and came up with some designs with the kids input.

P wanted something to do with mountain biking and came up with the phrase "This is how I roll".

I found a silhouette of some mtb moves and we were set. He chose the black T-shirt with yellow and white. I stuffed up a little part of the iron on yellow bike (the front hub of the third bike from the left if you're looking for the spot) and in trying to replace it, everything got ironed again and again. That resulted in the yellow vinyl becoming a bit more see through and less solid than it should have been.

He still absolutely loves it. I think it will be a favourite T-shirt for sure.

The phrase we all came up with for A, and everybody thought was perfect for her was this....

If you can't quite read all of it, try it this way: 

She had also wanted some more gym shorts. Suddenly all those many leotards I made are too small, or maybe just out of favour, I don't know. I was loathe to make more leotards in a bigger size just to have them passed over, so a quick pair of knit shorts it was. These are the Oliver + S Nature Walk pants in size 7 shortened. I had them already traced off as they're the shorts I used for P's swim trunks back here, or maybe here. I probably could have sized down a bit more, but she's happy.

I had quite a bit of trouble getting the settings on the Silhouette cutter right for the vinyl. Initially the machine went on the same crazy rampage that it did before Christmas when I first used it. It would jam, get stuck, then go off on a wild angle and slice the backing mat to pieces. Then, if I reduced the cutting depth or pressure it would barely mark the vinyl at all. Infuriating. At this point I was feeling like I could have laboriously hand cut the stencils faster...

The solution was some lithium grease on the cutting bar rail thingy, lots of sliding it back and forth and trying again. I finally hit on the right blade depth (5), cutting speed (4), force (31) and passes (2) to get a good, clean cut with only a slight mark on the mat. Annoyingly, I will need to purchase yet another mat before I give the machine back.

Once I finally had it sorted it seemed it would be easy to keep going, so both kids got a surprise T-shirt in addition to the one they had commissioned.

This sequence of cartwheeling required a bit of tidying up in Paint.net but then came up really well as a stencil. She was delighted!

And then, for P, I went with an idea that I first saw Brittney (Sewing For Four blog) do a good 4 years or so ago. A little riddle on a T-shirt...

Can you work it out?...

Well done you clever thing!*

All the T-shirts are the Jalie 3669 - Nico raglan T. I made them in the sizes I had traced off last year for the band members T-shirts. 

He wears Size O, no mods - seriously I have NOT added sleeve length. This is the kid that usually gets up to 5 inches of extra sleeve length. I think he could do with a touch more length than this pattern but it's obviously a very generous sleeve length if it fits the monkey child straight out of the packet.

She wears Jalie Nico size M, no mods. (and Nature Walk pants as shorts, size 7)

All fabrics were out of the stash and I just used self fabric for the neckbands. Not perfect for neckbands, but good enough.

It was a lot of fun and I kind of wish Flipper wanted a meme T-shirt too. What he does want is some more leg and arm warmers and to have reflective iron on vinyl monograms. Well, it just so happens I got some reflective iron on vinyl too. I better cut those letters before giving the machine back, or forgetting how to set it up for successful cutting.

*If you didn't get it, the clue is it's the title of a Dr Seuss book.