Pre-teen shirt tips

 When making Broc’s shirt I was a bit overwhelmed at trying to make a shirt that didn’t look too homemade or silly for a boy who is almost 10 (next month ack!). He wanted to use the car so we tried the wheel treads dipped in paint and rolled it a few times on the shirt. It turned pretty good! I thought adding a few to the elbows would make a mock patch look and I think it worked quite well. We also used a pencil gripper in a triangle shape dotted all over. both methods worked well.

My sewing for this one is going to have to grow up a bit since he is getting into the preteen sizes for sewing. He is in a 12 in length and will most likely be longer than that pretty soon and most boy patterns do not go that large, unfortunately. He is thin so I think just by adding length we will still be good for the time being. I am planning on taking a class on Craftsy for grading a pattern up or down a couple sizes and that will be a good thing with this boy ;0) I’ll be taking it soon and I’ll be sure to let you all know what I think about it!

 I learned a few things painting these shirts:
1. Anything can be used for painting shirts and the more creative you are the better they turn out.
2. Less is better at first. The more we added the younger the shirt looked.
3. Cool textures make less on the shirt seem like more. It also adds a design element older boys like.

 

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