Flower Power & Birthdays

Talking of flowers, my sister Theresa is having a hippy party to celebrate her 60th birthday next week, everyone is getting organised with hippy clothes, gathering accessories etc. among other things,  I have been working on a little top for Charlotte. Not one I made myself, in fact it was a sale purchase from the supermarket, the cute embroidery on the front sold it to me for £3

 I bought it over a year ago and she didn't really get a lot of wear out of it because it got too short length wise before she outgrew it, it occurred to me last week that the top actually still fits her, except it's too short. so I cut the bottom from another t-shirt from the quilt/rug pile and came up with this.

I didn't get a picture of the pink top on its own before I added the green bit but I'm sure it's easy to see what it looked like before I added the green bit.

I just stitched this by hand, tshirt fabric is great for this kind of thing as it doesn't fray.

I did one line of running stitch in 3 strands of pale blue embroidery thread along the very bottom of the pink top, then another with pink in a wavy line further up to join the pieces together, then another in green using french knots.

in the back I just did a straight line across and added a little heart applique,

 to match the one I did on the front with a blanket stitch in pink around the edge.

The one on the front is covering a transfer image that was already there, I thought the batik fabric would give it a more 'hippy' look.

Still needing something else to blend the two fabrics together

 I thought I might add a flower, and give the steam a seem another go,

 it worked a much better on the cotton tshirt fabric but I'm still not convinced I need two paper backings on a bonding product, anyway backing papers removed,

I placed it on top and ironed.

I then machine stitched round the edge a couple of times

with fuchsia pink embroidery thread

and added a little bead detail to the heart on the front, with hex glass beads
they have a very sparkly iridescent coating on them

I'm quite pleased with how it looks now


It's my older daughter, Aprils 20th birthday today :)
So that means its cake time

Victoria sandwich filled with lemon curd & lemon mousse
topped with lemon butter icing, more lemon curd and
sprinkled with lemon rind.

~ Happy Birthday April ~
XXX