Cityscape Baseball Tee

Want another fun, easy way to dress up a basic tee? Look no further than this week's tutorial! Use your favorite city's skyline, plus some dye, to make an ordinary tee spectacular! 

You'll need a black fabric marker, some dye, an old paintbrush, and fabric (or a pre-made tee). 

I'm starting from scratch with this project, mostly because it's easier to embellish a flat piece of fabric than a finished garment. (It's also a lot easier to start over if you make a mistake.) And, I really wanted an excuse to make up the Liberty Jane baseball tee...

First, I cut out the front of my tee. Then, I used chalk to mark off the bottom of my skyline, making sure to leave some room for the hem later on. I marked the approximate top of the skyline with a pin.  

I found a picture of the Seattle skyline on the internet, and started drawing it on the tee. It's a good idea to practice first on a piece of scrap fabric!

If you don't feel like freehanding, you can also lay your fabric over your inspiration skyline, and trace. Tape both the image, and the tee front, to a window, to give yourself a little helpful backlight. 

When you are happy with your skyline, protect your tee front with a press cloth, and iron it to heat-set the ink. (Your fabric pen probably came with directions about how to do this, but 30 seconds at a med-high heat is usually a good bet.)

Next: the ombre wash! 

I got my tee front thoroughly wet, then daubed on very concentrated dye with my paintbrush, and let it sit for a while. It looks really dark and intense in this photo, but a lot of it rinsed out, giving a very delicate look instead. How dark a color you get, depends on the fabric you use, how concentrated your dye is, and how long you let it sit. 

In any case, be sure to give it a gentle wash in detergent, to get out any remaining dye molecules, before drying and heat-setting it again. 

Finally, all that's left is to sew your beautiful new shirt front to the other pieces of the tee.

Thanks for following along, and have fun with this!

For Pixie Faire,
Melinda