Becket's Christmas Gift

It was not my intention to have such a crafty Christmas, but it turned out that way and I had so much fun making all these gifts.

It actually all started with my godson, Becket.  I knew from around October that I was going to make him some tie t-shirts for Christmas, because he's such a goof and loves wearing his ties!  I figured this way, he could wear ties to his sister's soccer games, or to the playground, or even just around the house.

Over Thanksgiving, I borrowed Alina's sewing machine and brought it to Camp.  I spent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at Target, Michaels and JoAnn Fabrics gathering all the supplies I would need to make Becket's shirts.  I (classically) overestimated how much I would get done at Camp over the Thanksgiving break, so instead of finishing them up down there, I brought everything back to Swann Street and made them the Sunday and Monday nights after Thanksgiving.

These shirt have been all over the blogosphere for years, I know, but I was so excited to actually make them.

Like nearly all of my crafting projects, I used other blogger's trial and errors to help minimize my own, finding this particular tutorial quite helpful.

Start with plain white t-shirts from Target.  I went with long sleeve since I wanted him to be able to wear them immediately.

So I measured and then cut out a template in wax paper, which was perfect.  You can pin it but it doesn't rip easily.

I did my best to cut the fabric's out so that the "knot" fabric would be in a different direction than the tail of the tie, but really only one of them turned showed that detail.

Once all three were cut out, it was time to sew baby, sew!  I used clear thread, which has some stretch in it, and it worked out great.  This way too, I could use one color thread (and bobbin) for all three shirts instead of having to change the colors for each tie.

I guess I forgot to take a picture of the orange tie solo! The green tie Becket wore on Christmas night to the Gama party with some red corduroy pants.  Festive and fun!

I liked them so much, I made one for the little boy who lives upstairs, Liam.  I dropped it off with my rent check on December 1st, and the next day when I went to check the mailbox, Liam was sitting in the window wearing the shirt I made for him saying "Thank you.  I love my shirt!" through the window!  It was so freakin' adorable.

Now that Christmas is over, I need to pick what my next projects will be..

Tah-tah, dearies!