Monday, November 24, 2008

Reverse Applique Handprint Turkey Shirts

It's a joyful thing to be inspired over one's morning coffee...

Inspired over my morning coffee this morning by this post from One More Moore about making her children reverse applique handprint turkey shirts, this became our morning project after breakfast (one half leftover veggie burger, handful of leftover fries, and half a pear each) and books (two from each kid is my at-a-time limit--in current heavy rotation are Nutcracker stories and the Henry and Mudge books):

The big kid's shirt, which once had a permanent marker stain where now there is a turkey, has a reverse applique with red plaid felt from my old undergrad dorm sheets, a button from my button jar, a beak and wattle from a felted wool sweater, and embroidery using the darning foot on my sewing machine.

The little kid's shirt, which I think came out even better, once had a Baby Gap logo where now there is a turkey. It has the green plaid set of my old dorm sheets, and I think the embroidered beak and wattle look better than the felt ones on this shirt.

I made both basically by following the blog post's instructions, except that I cheated by tracing the kids' hands onto freezer paper and then ironing it onto the shirt before stitching.

While I worked, I traced many more hands for the kids to cut out and color and just generally do stuff with. Other handprint activities include:
  • Cutting out handprints and using them to measure stuff (the big kid claims that she is five hands high--accuracy is clearly not important for this)
  • Comparing handprints of family members to talk about growing and aging, and making a collaborative family artwork with them
  • Making inkpad handprints to see the wrinkles on our skin
  • Pressing handprints into air-dry clay--I have one of these from when the big kid was a little kid, and it's one of my greatest treasures
  • This beautiful embroidery from Plumpudding
  • Encouraging collaboration by getting kids to trace each other's hands
  • Encouraging non-dominant hand motor skills by encouraging a kid to trace her dominant hand
A super-awesome project, right? One More Moore RULES!

And so do sisters.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

6 comments:

Lorie said...

I LOVE this idea and wish I had more time before Thanksgiving! I think next year we are ALL wearing these shirts!

Jen @ By Jen ❤️ said...

Your shirts turned out so cute! I'm making shirts for my daughters, too, but I only got one shirt
finished today. What a great idea! So much fun! Have a great Thanksgiving!

Abby said...

Man, your girls are so sweet. I sort of want to eat Sydney.

The shirts are way cute! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

(Are you staying here - or going home? Are you a turkey, or a tofurky? I'm a turkey (my dad ordered from b-foods this year, so it's organic) - my bro and scott do the quorn cutlet.

cake said...

lovely shirts. nicely done

Anonymous said...

They turned out Perfect!! love them!

Morgan Moore said...

These turned out SO Great and I LOVE that last b&w photo! So sweet!

xo