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How to Upcycle a T-Shirt with Floral Applique and Hand Embroidery


Upcycle A Shirt with Fabric and Thread

Are you looking for a fun way to spice up your wardrobe? Applique and a little hand embroidery are an easy and simple project you can do in just a few hours. This DIY project is perfect for creating a sweatshirt for the holidays, upcycling a t-shirt that might have a stain, or adding some pizzaz to a plain garment. In this tutorial I cover what supplies you'll need, share a video tutorial, as well as a step-by-step tutorial with photos.


How to Upcycle a T-Shirt with Floral Applique and Hand Embroidery


T-Shirt with Floral Applique and Hand Embroidery

Supplies You'll Need to Upcycle a T-Shirt

Watch the Virtual Michaels Workshop Recording




Step-by-Step T-Shirt with Floral Applique and Hand Embroidery Tutorial:

  1. Start by ironing your fabrics. Turn your iron to medium heat or whatever is best for your type of fabrics. Once the fabric is ironed, flip the fabric over. Place the Heat N Bond Lite Sewable Iron-On Adhesive against the back of the fabric. The rough bumpy side should be against the back of the fabric. Iron the adhesive into place by pressing and holding the iron for about 10-15 seconds.

Ironing Heat N Bond Adhesive on the the back of the fabric

  1. Then trace your pattern onto the Heat N Bond adhesive. You'll want to do this for all of the fabric pieces you plan to use in your design. Cut out the designs. For me, this ended up being three flowers and three flower centers.


trace the floral pattern

  1. Then place the designs on your garment however you'd like. When you're happy with the arrangement, peel off the paper backing. Then iron the patterns to your garment. Press and hold the iron on top of the design for 10-15 seconds.



  1. Once the patterns are ironed onto your garment, choose your embroidery thread colors and stitch them down. I used the running stitch and the buttonhole stitch for my design.


Close up of stitched flowers on t-shirt

How to embroider the running stitch:

The running stitch is a dashed line.

  • To start, bring the needle up through the fabric from the back side for the fabric to the front at your starting point ~1/4 inch away from the fabric edge.

  • Go back down through the fabric a short distance from the first point. Pop the needle back up through the fabric, about 1/4 inch away from where it went in. Then gently tug so that the thread creates a dashed line. Continue this until you go all the design.



How to embroider the buttonhole stitch:

The buttonhole stitch looks like a line that has legs. It's great for edging!

  • Start at the point you would like the inside of the buttonhole design to begin. For me, this was ~ 1/4 inch away from the edge of my fabric design.

  • Hold the thread off to the side of the fabric and bring the needle back down about 1/4 inch away from where you came up. This should make a loop of thread on the front of the fabric.

  • Next bring your needle up through the loop of thread on the front of the fabric, where you would like to outer edge of the buttonhole to be. For me, this was along the edge of the fabric design.

  • Hold the thread off to the side again and bring the needle back down through the fabric at the bottom point of the buttonhole, ~1/4 inch away from the previous stitch.

  • Continue along the buttonhole until the entire piece is outlined.

  • To end the buttonhole stitch, bring the needle back down through the fabric just to the right of the top of the last thread loop.



Happy stitching!


How to Easily Upcycle a T-Shirt

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