Hand-Stitched Leaf Stencil eTee

After my wonderful retreats at Alabama Chanin in Florence, Alabama last summer and again this summer, my obsession with AC-style stitching is unrelenting—not driven, but truly relaxing and satisfying.

The inspiration for this t-shirt came from the over-dyed and overlaid stenciled pieces Alabama Chanin has put on old quilts.  See the Alabama Chanin website for these beautiful and one of a kind quilts.

Here at the Sewing Workshop studio, we have these unique knit panels from Dolce and Gabbana.  This fabric has been here for a few years and I think we outgrew the need to have man pecs on our shirt with the Quench My Desire motif.  Time to soften the raw man up!!!

I downloaded the New Leaves Stencil design from the Alabama Chanin website and taped the pages together.

The base fabric with the man motif was fortunately light enough to see the stencil design through, so I could manipulate where I wanted to place the leaves. I used the Sewing Workshop download e/Tee pattern and cut out the shirt front. 

I then made another paper copy of the portion of the stencil I wanted to use. In this case it was pages 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, and 27, and taped them together again.

Using the fantastic product, Sulky KK 2000 Temporary Spray Adhesive, I sprayed the back of the second paper copy and laid this on fabric piece of Alabama Chanin lightweight organic cotton.  The adhesive provides just enough bond for the paper to stick without a tacky mess on the fabric.

Working in sections, I cut out the needed leaf motifs.

Using the original stencil sheet and knit panel as a guide, I arranged the cut out leaves and used just enough Fusi-Web to keep them in place before stitching.

Using two strands of embroidery floss, I did big running stitches around the inside of each motif to permanently keep them in place.

Now the pec-man has been sufficiently subdued peaking out from behind the foliage.

I used the same burgundy lightweight knit to cut out the rest of the eTee and assembled.