A "Pocket" Full of Sunshine

Lately, on Pinterest, there have been a lot of tutorials and pictures of these DIY pocket sweatshirts and t-shirts that are super cute. Honestly, that website is full of cute EVERYTHING! I found a pin of these shirts that I loved sometime last week and it inspired me to make some!

So, the other day, I went to Walmart to get sweatshirts, t-shirts and pocket fabric. Evie and I made tie-dye sweatshirts out of the ones from Walmart one time and they turned out awesome and were very comfy, so I thought they would be perfect for these too! It was fun mixing and matching fabric squares with the sweatshirts to find a combination that looked good. The fabric squares I found were only ninety-seven cents! Plus, you get more than enough fabric than you need for the pocket, so you can make more later!

Now, let's get started! Here is how to make your very own pocket sweatshirt or t-shirt.

STEP 1 - Gather all of your materials. You will need:

• a t-shirt or sweatshirt (prewashed, if possible)
• fabric (cotton)
• iron-on adhesive
• fabric scissors
• pencil, pen, or marker
• iron
• cardboard or paper
• embroidery thread (or just regular thread)
• needle
• ruler

STEP 2 - Make a pattern for your pocket. First, start out with a square. The one I made was four inches on all sides. Next, measure half way across the bottom and make a mark. Then, measure 1/2-3/4 of an inch up from the bottom and make two more marks. Draw lines from your marks on the sides to the mark at the bottom in the middle and cut the extra triangles off. You should have a pattern like the one below.

STEP 3 - Prepare your fabric for tracing by laying it flat on a hard surface. Trace your pocket pattern on the wrong (not pretty) side of the fabric. I ended up tracing through two layers to make sure you couldn't see through the pocket. If you want the pocket to be the same size as your pattern, leave roughly a centimeter on each edge when tracing. If you use a ruler, you'lll be sure to have a nice, clean line. Cut out the shape you traced.

STEP 4 - Heat that iron up! Fold all of the edges in about a centimeter and iron them down to make a crease. Do you see why you left room when tracing? In the last picture with the blue pocket, I did not add any extra around the edges, that's why it is the same size as the pattern. This pocket ended up being smaller than the pattern.

STEP 5 - Grab your iron-on adhesive. I used the Heat n' Bond Ultrahold Strips, which worked well. Cut your strips to your desired width and length. Paper side up and adhesive side down,  iron the strips onto each edge of the ironed-down fabric EXCEPT for the top. If you iron the top on, your pocket won't be functional, and who would want that? However, because I did two layers, I used a thinner strip to hold the folded edge down, so it would look clean. After your strips have cooled, peel the paper off. 

STEP 6 - Find out where you want your pocket to be by trying it on, having someone else try it on, or just eyeballing it. If you have someone try it on, make sure you mark it somehow because you can't really hold it there while they take the shirt off. 

STEP 7 - Place the pocket where you want it on the shirt and iron it for around ten seconds. Then, turn the shirt inside-out and iron the pocket from the back. For the most part, this held the pocket into place. 

STEP 8 - Notice how I said "for the most part?" On the shirts I made, the corners started to stick up a little bit. If you put your strips really close to the edge, this might not happen, but I can't make any promises. Because I didn't want the pocket to come off at all, I turned this "no-sew" project into a "little-bit-o'-sew" project. On all of the corners, I just sewed a little loop to hold it in place. To do this, I used embroidery thread, which should match considering it will show, that I split in half. Embroidery thread is the string you use for friendship bracelets, if you didn't know, and is really like six pieces of regular thread together. I split it in half so I could fit it through the needle hole. I only had to loop it around three times before tying it off. I guess that's a plus of using thicker thread!

STEP 9 - Trim any excess thread on the inside and outside to make everything look neat.

STEP 10 (t-shirt only) - If you're like me and went to Walmart for a t-shirt, you most likely got a men's one. Sewing a pocket on doesn't make it look less like a men's shirt, but there is something you can add that will make it look a little bit more feminine. Roll the edges of the sleeves up twice and add some more of your iron-on adhesive underneath the last roll on the front and back to hold it in place. This adds to the shirt more than you would think.

And you're all done! Go rock that new sweatshirt or t-shirt you just made!

Sock it to 'Em

A few summers ago, my little sister, Carley, and I were home alone for the day. It was one of the first summers where we didn't have too much going on because we were getting too old for summer camps. Our dad works during the day  and our mom was on a business trip, so we were stuck at home with nothing (and I mean NOTHING) to do. It wasn't the first day we were home that week so we were pretty much out of ideas.

For some reason, at that age, I was obsessed with sock monkeys. For the record, this was a few years ago... I am not anymore in case you were wondering. I wanted a sock money SO bad. I remember seeing a giant one right before Christmas at Smith's and of course, Santa didn't bring it. Darn.

Anyways, I had this brilliant idea to make my own sock monkey! I looked online for a while and didn't find anything that Carley and I could make out of things we already had at home, since we couldn't drive to get supplies. All of the things I found for sock monkeys were complicated patterns that we had no idea how to make. Eventually, I came across a "how-to" for sock bunnies. It was really easy, but we kind of changed it up a bit. I must say, I was a little, crafty genius!

Here is how we made ours-

Materials:
one knee-high sock
embroidery thread
needle
two buttons
felt
stuffing
sharp scissors
hot glue gun

Pick a sock that is tall. Bunnies have long ears, right? So you want to have a sock that will give you long enough ears. The sock on the left is from Claire's and would work perfectly if I were going to make another one. I like to use fuzzy socks because it makes your bunny extra soft, too!

First, with the heel of the sock facing upwards, cut down the middle of the sock (through both layers) until a few inches above the heel. These are your ears, so you can decide how far you want to cut them after you have made the head as well.

Then, stuff the sock all the way up to the heel of the sock. In the picture above it would be to the bottom of the pink. Tie a piece of embroidery thread, ribbon, etc. around the top of your stuffing. This is where the bunny's neck will be.

Now, stuff the sock again. This time, make it up to about the top of the heel, maybe a little bit past it. This is your bunny's head. It is a lot easier to shape the head by shaping the stuffing and then putting it in the sock.

You should have already cut ears by now, so take embroidery thread and tie it around each ear to hold the stuffing inside. It kind of looks like your bunny has pigtails in its hair! Round the tops of the ears by cutting them with scissors. We sewed the tops after we cut them so they wouldn't fray at all.

Now you just need to add the finishing touches! Sew the two buttons on for eyes, glue a felt triangle for the nose and sew a felt piece full of stuffing for the tail. And you're all done!

Happy crafting!