Hello and greetings, serendipitous readers of Shealynn's equally lovely blog! I'm Marlene E. from over www.thetouchofwhimsy.blogspot.com way, and I'm absolutely delighted to meet one and all!


I've officially hijacked this blog for a day, so now you must bear with me as I share my little tutorial on how to make a positively geeky and utterly fashionable shirt inspired by everyone's favorite-book-soon-to-be-an-amazing-film, The Hobbit. My inspiration was simple. You know those coolio maps the good ol' Professor drew at the beginning of the book...? Not sure? Don't know what I'm talking about? Here's a convincer:

Here's what you're going to need...

ONE Cream T-Shirt, blank and ready to be turned into awesome sauce
ONE skein of DMC floss in red... if you can't find this particular color, that's okay. Any burgundy will do just as nicely.
ONE needle
ONE sheet of transfer paper*
ONE ballpoint pen*
*If you have another method of transferring designs onto fabric, by all means, feel free to substitute!

With these trusty tools, you're good to go. Now, the more astute of you may be shocked, but I didn't use a hoop. I thought it would stretch the shirt in an unsightly and irreparable manner.

I also couldn't find my hoop. Hem

Take the following design...

...and transfer it onto your shirt. About 3 1/2” below where the pit of your neck should be when wearing the shirt.

Now, my dears, take your NEEDLE and FLOSS, and go at it with a simple split stitch! Nothin' fancy, nothin' big... just make simple, plain old split-stitches all along the outlines of the design. You can substitute any other stitch you think would look better, I just chose this one because I wanted to. So there.

And... really, that's that. Really. Oh, I did forget a step... go rock your new Smaug shirt in a place where all can see your awesome geekiness.

Oyez.

Thanks a bunch, Shealynn, for having on your lovely blob. It's been a most pleasurable experience!