This project is a little bit of stitching and little colouring in and a lot of impact. It was great fun to make, took an afternoon to make and has a lot of scope for individual choice in colour. There are many different colours in the hibiscus family to suit personal taste and colour combos.
The hibiscus flowers speak of a tropical climate full of vibrancy and warmth. I think the bright colours here may also convey that feeling and it was a great way to give life to an old T shirt looking for a renovation.
The pattern is available for free on our website in the Resources section . I should point out that as a left handed stitcher, it seemed natural to lay this pattern across the left shoulder of the T shirt. If you prefer to lay the pattern on the right of your shirt, don't flip the pattern as I did. I think it looks best when the flower bud points to the shoulder.
The T shirt was strengthened with some iron on, light weight stabiliser. I have found that when using these light weight stabilisers on T shirts, the stretch of the fabric tends to pull the stabiliser away from the fabric. To counter this I basted around the pattern with a basting stitch to keep everything in place.
The pattern is stitched using stem stitch and here I followed the method for left handed people which was shown in our video Stem Stitch. By holding my thread above the stitching, I should get the same look as a right handed person holding the thread below the stitch line. If this is too complicated, then don't worry. Do what feels comfortable and be consistent over your piece.
My threads here are 2 strands of DMC colours,
-Bright Red 817
-Dark Red 816
-Bright Green 906.
Sewing up the pattern is quick and easy, however you will see in the video that I unpicked the styles of the flowers as they were far too thick to be realistic. While the pattern is easy to see through the T shirt fabric, the stabiliser made it quite difficult to see the pattern through both the fabric and stabiliser. I took this opportunity to retouch some of the pen work which had not penetrated the fabric under some of the stitching.
The stamens of the flowers are made using Long French Knots, see our video French Knots. I have used 2 strands of DMC cotton, colour 17.
You can see in the image on the right that the use of the bright red flower outline and dark red petal veins tries to give the impression of depth to the flower. I attempted to reinforce this depth with the use of the colour Pigment Markers. I purchased these from Kmart ( Australia) for $10 for a 24 pack. I am sold on these markers and absolutely love them.
The pens have a nice firm, fine tip which was great for reaching right up to the stitch lines. They can be blended where 2 colours meet and provide great coverage. Also, they don't make the fabric of the T shirt feel at all stiff, and best of all, after washing, I couldn't detect any dulling of the colours and they stayed vibrant and true to the original. Also the colours didn't bleed beyond the stitch lines which enabled the images to stay clear and crisp. I will definitely be using these again in a future project.
See our video of making Stella on YouTube
Watch our video tutorial on Stem stitch.
Watch our video tutorial on French knots.
Find the free downloadable PDF of the Hibiscus flowers on our Resources page.
