Off with my head! (With felt applique)

It figures- I set myself a schedule and fall off of it the next week. I may need to rethink the whole Mondays and Fridays thing. But I'm only a day late with my Off With Their Heads playing card shirt.

I had this idea last week when I wore my cool playing card socks, and I was planning to make it last Friday before I got distracted by baby bibs. I have several plain tee-shirts which could use a little personality, and I've got a few other ideas kicking around in my little skull that I might go to later when I'm feeling like a quick and easy project.

The neatest thing about this one was that it was free! I already had the shirt, and the felt came from a box of craft supplies my friend Troy gave me during spring cleaning. I cut out my shapes from the black and red felt, making templates for the spade and club because they're surprisingly difficult to do freehand.

The cut-outs are cut out- see the nice recycled paper template!

I played around with the layout until I liked how it looked, then stitched the shapes in place with matching color thread.

I am still getting the hang of sewing with knits. And by "getting the hang of" I mean "get really frustrated by."

Finally I switched to contrasting color thread and zig-zagged around the outside for an accent. Guy said that if he were to change one thing, he would have done that stitch in matching colors, and I think I agree with him. You can't see it very well in the picture, but it looks messy to me. Never mind, scrappy and scruffy is always in.

The finished project!

No one was home to take a picture...

There are plenty of felt applique tutorials on the internets. I didn't use any of them, but if you wanted to try it at home, this one looks good. I didn't use any fusibile interfacing like she suggests, but I wish I had.

And that's all for today!