The Art Shirt

"Here mom, I want this on a shirt." said hastily by Emma as she hands me her art picture and runs ahead of me on our way home from art class. I am left looking at her art picture...they learned to draw owls...and try and figure out the best possible way to transfer a picture to a shirt we do not have in the least 'work for me' way.

Owl Art

Luckily I knew just what to do....print the picture on fabric printer paper and iron on a shirt (we will need to get a white sweat shirt). No problem.......yeah right. First problem: a plain white sweat shirt could not be found in any of the gazillion stores we looked in at the mall. Emma decided this was good because she said it would look better on a sweater like the one we got from Old Navy only in a different color. Just so happens this sweater is her favorite and she has been asking for another one. However the idea wasn't too bad, the sweater is cute and cheap. We find one in a mulberry/white stripe that will go great with the colors in the drawing.

Second problem: After transferring the picture to the fabric I realized the printer ink is water soluble...in other words I will not be able to wash the shirt. A very active, loves to play outdoors, girl who will be wearing this shirt. No way can this work. Guess I can outline the shirt in embroidery thread. Took all weekend but I got it outlined. The colored in areas were a different problem. I can outline with a embroidery stitch but fill an area and my stitching shows it's flaws. Sharpies are great for this....why I did not think to use the Sharpies to outline the picture with I do not know, but it would have saved me 2 days of work and countless sticks to my fingers...and we happen to have the exact colors needed. I figured after washing, if the Sharpie colors start to fade she can just color them in again.

Third problem: The picture has areas where Emma used crayon to give it a setting sun look. Coloring this in with Sharpie would take away the crayon look. What to use? Time for a trip to Blick art store. Do you know they have fabric dyes in crayon form? Super neat and easy to use. The results looked exactly like the original art work. Best of all the dye gets set with a hot iron...just color and iron...permanent color.

With the picture now transferred to the shirt I encountered the last problem, it looked sort of plain and just stuck on the shirt. Guess I need to add a border. I found some large rick rack at Michaels and some cute Owl ribbon. I am happy to say the result turned out better then I planned.

Completed Shirt

Closer look

Even closer look

Here are the supplies I used for the "simple" art to shirt project.

Supplies minus the embroidery thread

Em loves the shirt (so all the hard work was worth it) and she has plans to wear it to her next art class. Hopefully that class will not produce another project for me to do.

Unsocialized...in a sense

This week I decided to unsocialize myself. I quit facebook and the forum I have visited for years. No deep philosophical reasons for it, just got tired of the same old stuff. The forum was a homeschool forum and while homeschool was discussed so were many hot buttons. I think my rose colored glassed just got too cracked for my taste. Seeing how people really think, the hate in them, the "me" mentality, the "everyone is an idiot if your view is different" people. Then there are those who can shove tolerance down your throats but have no idea what it really means. I think the thread that got me started on feeling the need to get away from these people was on a thread that discussed breaking laws. Apparently it is okay to break rules and laws if you think they are stupid or don't apply to you and your special family. Boggles the mind...how does one pick and choose what laws and rules to follow and which ones do not apply to you. Change the law don't break it. Don't like a rule of an establishment, then don't go there. Why do you get to decide what is right/wrong/or not needing to pertain to you.

Anyway, I will move on..........
Since I now have eliminated half the purpose of going online for me, I now have more time. Time to focus on the house, on homeschooling, and even on myself. Since Monday I have cleaned the entire house, organized my closet, finished knitting mittens for my hubby (this deserves a blog post of its own), taught school to Em (all subjects)and be finished by 11:30am, read a book, made yarn balls from skeins of yarn, and made gauge swatches for the 3 projects I plan to knit for myself. I have found new enjoyment in the home. I even made a cake and found myself bored for a short time on Wednesday. Even have time to blog again.

The thing is, I never really spent hours and hours on these sites, just while I drank coffee and then an occasional peek to see if anything needs a response. I think the time sucked from my day was the emotional gunk these things placed on me. It slowed me down. Got me irritated and at times in a funk. It was all that gunk I took away from my time online that slowed me down. It was enough of a "gunk takeaway' that not having it anymore was visible...an acquaintance saw me yesterday and commented how happy I looked. I realized I really felt happy. I mean not just surface happy, but deep down. I did not have all that gunk build up anymore.

So there will be no facebook or twitter for me...no following forums. I will be , in the worlds eyes, unsocialized. I will get my rosy glasses fixed. I will be happy.