Guest Post - "I can Totally do that" Hand Embroidered Sweatshirt

I feel really lucky to be guest posting on The Sisters 4...I know them in real life and am totally intimidated by their genius, and yet they are so real and lovable you can't help but want to be their groupies.  My name is Syd...I met Sister #1 when we lived in Michigan.  I miss her like crazy.  Now that I've moved West, I am lucky to live by Sister # 2.  I feel like a fraud posting my ideas here, as I am just not anywhere near as creative as most of you.  However when I get the time and inkling to do something, I always think 'I can totally do that' and usually just do it!!  Like the time I made an awesome Christmas pillow, or the time I recovered my sons car-seat.  So I am total proof that anyone can be creative...because, seriously, if I can do it, ANYONE can!!  Maybe once my babies are bigger I'll have more time to do things like this...but for now... here is my guest post on how I made a hand embroidered sweatshirt.  I made mine for Halloween (which I am crazy about) but you could do it for any theme.

When my oldest was born we lived in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, Missouri.  As it came time for Halloween, I didn't have access to an Old Navy or even a Target to buy her a fun Halloween outfit.  One day as I was looking at the cute embroidered Gap sweatshirt she was wearing (see below) and I thought, 'I can totally do that'.  

Enter a plain old orange Garanimals sweatsuit I found at a thrift store...

Some embroidery floss and rope and a few hours later, we had this...

I started with the rope Boo.  It may have even been a shoelace...(we were really in the middle of nowhere...).  I just whipstitched it on.  I am sure you could use a glue gun (I didn't even have one of those).  If you look closely at the letters on the 'spring' sweatshirt, you can see how they sewed their rope on, and I tried to copy that, but I used black thread.

Then I went back in and freehand embroidered each letter. 

I do hate spiders, but LOVE how the B turned out. :)  Next I did the Pumpkin in the O.  Then I did just the black cat on the fence (I looked at a picture from a kids book to eyeball it), but that O looked too empty, so I added the moon and bat.  I didn't put any kind of felt lining or backing inside the sweatshirt, but that would be a good idea.

Eight years and 4 kids later it still looks pretty good.  Here is the latest addition to our family wearing the traditional Halloween Outfit!  (I took a million pics trying to get one that shows both the shirt AND her smile...)

 

Nice Drool...

And just for fun, (and because I obviously like to post pictures of my kids) here are each of our other kids wearing the shirt for their first Halloween...(I got the pumpkin hat on clearance when I worked at the gap before I had kids...)

And there you go!!  Feel free to come check out my blog, but it's mostly just pictures of my kids for my mom!! :)  Thanks Sisters for letting me guest post.  Makes me feel like I am sister #5.  :)

Thanks Syd!!! you are sister #5!