A few weeks ago I caught a teaser for an old episode of Gilmore Girls. Rory or Lane (I can't be sure - it flashed by pretty quick) was wearing a black t-shirt with a skull and crossbones on it. I'm not sure that I saw it right, but I'm fairly certain the skull was made of buttons. I tried to track down a picture online but came up empty. I immediately drew a wee sketch on the white board because I knew I was going to make one. This morning I finished it. Super easy!
Get yourself a plain t-shirt and a handful of mismatched buttons from your stash (see? I knew I'd find a use for 'em). I used an Old Navy tee I picked up this weekend, but you could do this on pants or a bag or anything really. You'll also need some chalk, an image with a good outline (google image search), a handful of pins and some fabric glue.
Center the image on the shirt and outline the edges with the chalk. That way you can try on the shirt to make sure the image isn't sitting too low on the front porch (if you know what I mean). If it is, you've only used chalk and it brushes away really easily.
Put a folded towel inside the shirt and start pinning the buttons inside the lines. Once you have them all cute and in a good place, bring on the fabric glue. This is where I had a minor problem. You can't just pull the shirt off the towel with all the pins in it to head over to the sewing machine and you don't want to lose the button placement, so dab a teeny, tiny, little drop of glue underneath each button. Just enough to tack it down, not so much that it gooshes up through the buttonholes.
Once the glue is mostly dry (I'm very impatient, but I managed to let it dry overnight. Good Girl), you can sew the buttons on by hand (time consuming) or be lazy like me and do it by machine. I'm fairly certain there's a proper setting on my machine to do this, but I just drop the feed dogs and set the zig zag stitch to the same width as the button holes. The chalk comes off in the wash and voila!
I was thinking this would be cute as flowers or birds too, I'm just on a skull kick this week.
Very cool-that would look great on a totebag as well. However, one question since I'm sewing stupid-what in the world is a "feed dog"? How would I know if my machine has one?
I'll quit asking stupid questions now!
Posted by: Jennifer | March 07, 2005 at 16:04
How freakin' cool is that?
I have a spring break coming up...I see a craft project in my future...
Posted by: Michelle | March 07, 2005 at 17:18
That is cool. Now I'll have something to do with all those black t-shirts I've been hoarding.
Posted by: Maktaaq | March 07, 2005 at 19:42
Those Gilmore Girls sure do have some fabulous clothes. I'm so impressed that you just designed a shirt and brought it to life! Well done my dear!
Posted by: melanie | March 07, 2005 at 21:45
That Caro girl is so crafty! Love it! :) I need to get this button stash--I think I could find a million uses for them.
Thanks for the craftspiration, C!
--Lolly
Posted by: Lolly | March 08, 2005 at 07:46
Fabulous!!! Now I'm wondering what design to make out of buttons for my own t-shirt - so many ideas...
Posted by: Shelby | March 08, 2005 at 08:00
Fantasticlly cool. Love it!
Posted by: General Ginger | March 08, 2005 at 08:51
Aw jeez. How cute. I'm totally copying you.
Posted by: jodi | March 08, 2005 at 11:25
Just popped over here from "recently updated"....you make beautiful things! And this button thing is a fabulous idea. I think I'm going to try it with different shapes for my little ones....flowers, birds, all sorts of fun things. Thanks for the inspiration, and great tutorial!
Posted by: amanda | March 12, 2005 at 12:44
This is a totally cute idea!
Even if you did mistake what you saw, this I bet is much better.
I Just had a Q.
Why do you put the fabric Glue on?
Is it because the Pins have nothing to stay onto?
Sorry for the "dumb q" I am a great sewer.
But not so good with common sense! ;D
Posted by: Crystal | September 06, 2006 at 22:33
LOVE THIS!
in small part from the gilmores reference!
Posted by: kirsten | October 13, 2006 at 09:19