How to Make an Appliqued Snowman Sweatshirt

In this article I will give you the instructions on how to make an appliquéd sweatshirt. With these instructions I'm sure you will be able to make one with ease.

As you can see in the picture on this appliquéd sweatshirt, I did a winter scene. As the snowman is the main object in the winter scene and him being white. I chose to go with a dark colored sweatshirt, navy blue.

Materials needed:

Sweatshirt of choice

1 sheet of white felt for snowman

1 sheet of gold felt for moon

1 sheet of green felt for evergreen tree

1 sheet black or dark gray felt for hat

DMC embroidery threads:

White, Black, Brown and goldish orange

3 - ½" buttons

Small piece of material for hat trim and scarf

Fusible webbing

Tools needed:

Scissors

Large needle

Disappearing ink sewing marker

Stick pins

First of all if your sweatshirt does not say pre-washed, you will want to wash and dry your sweatshirt before you begin. Then you need to cut the waist band and cuff bands off the sweatshirt. At the end these will be finished with a blanket stitch.

On the back of each piece of felt, iron on a piece of fusible webbing for the item that you will be cutting out. (Note that the tree, moon and hat are smaller, so you may want to only put a small amount of fusing on these, as not to waste.) Let cool.

Next using the sewing marker, on the white piece of felt draw an 8" snowman, on the green piece of felt draw a 4 ½" evergreen tree, on the gold piece of felt draw a 3" moon quarter and on the black or gray felt draw a 1 ½" hat. Cut each of these items out.

Once cut out, take off the back peel of the webbing. Arrange the pieces how you would like them on the sweatshirt. The hat should be on snowman's forehead a bit. Take an 8" by 1/3" piece of your material and place the middle of it under the snowman's neck for his scarf. With a few stick pins, pin the felt pieces on to the sweatshirt. Iron them in place, cool and remove stick pins.

Now, for using the threads you will want to use three strands of the brown thread, the DMC has six strands. Cut about a 3 foot piece and pull apart two sets of three slowly. Thread large needle with the brown thread and tie off knot at the end. Pull through at the snowman's body where you will want his arms to go. Twist thread as making arms, it will bunch up slightly and look like a tree branch. Make each arm about 2" - 2 ½" long.

You're ready now to put your snowman's face on. Use black for his eyes and mouth, and the goldish orange for his nose. Use tiny X's for the eyes, straight stitches for his mouth. For his nose take a toothpick to use as a guide, place downward a bit, where his nose should go and wrap stitches around the toothpick on one side going down in to the material and coming out the other side of the toothpick and wrap around and repeat this step all the way down the toothpick until nose is completed. Remove toothpick.

Put a few stars in the sky by making some X's using the white thread.
I also put the trim of his hat on now. A piece of the material 1/3" wide by the width of his hat is good. You could put the fusible webbing on this piece also when you are fusing the pieces, but I prefer to just put it on with fabric glue.

Next you will finish all the edges. I prefer the blanket stitch but you could use any you like. I use black on the snowman and moon, and white on the evergreen tree.

For the arm and waist edges, you will fold the over ¾" to the outside of your sweatshirt (not the normal way that a hem should go) and pin. I use white thread to really make these stitches stand out. For the trimming of the sleeves and waist I find the blanket stitch really looks the best here.

The last thing you will want to do is sew the button on the snowman's body. You want to do this last so when working with the thread is not tangling on the buttons.

Of course, with these instructions you can change the scene to what ever you want, for any occasion, just by changing the felt and objects. You can even use cookie cutter to help with designs. Such as hearts for Valentine's Day or shamrocks for St. Patty's Day.