Long Sleeved Robot Stenciled & Appliqued Shirt

My 3 year-old really is interested in robots. Maybe concerned about robots is the correct terminology. He's asked a lot of questions about them lately. I described them as 'a computer with a face'. My engineer husband laughed. 

Here’s a close-up of the stencil and applique. I freezer paper stenciled the yellow robot then stitched around it to make it stand out a bit more.

You can see how anxious he was to try it on. 

I didn’t make the white t-shirt but I added the long sleeves to it. To make the stencil, I used the robot template from Li'l Blue Boo. I followed the tutorial I’ve already posted for freezer paper stenciling.

After the yellow paint dried, I measured and cut a rectangle around the robot. Then I ironed on some interfacing to the back of the fabric piece. This also heat sets the paint so it will not fade during washing.

 

 I stitched around the robot with my machine. I didn’t think the yellow paint provided enough of a contrast on its own.

Then I hand sewed the button eyes onto the robot.

Next, I sewed a slightly larger piece of striped jersey fabric (with interfacing) onto the back of the robot-stenciled gray fabric. Then I sewed the whole thing onto the center of the white shirt.

Next, I added the sleeves the same way I added sleeves in this tutorial for adding sleeves to a child’s polo shirt. I did add a cuff at the bottom of these sleeves, different than the tutorial. But I think you can figure it out without pictures.

I can tell you the measurements I used for the sleeves (he wears a 4T):

14” total on the outside of the arm. The white short sleeves were 4” long so I knew I needed 10” more. I needed 10” in width, too. I tapered the sleeves a bit, so I started with 10”x10” square of fabric and tapered the bottom to 7” wide. Then I added the cuff by cutting a 3”x7” piece of fabric, pressing it in half and sewing it to the narrow end of the now tapered sleeve. Then I sewed it together and then sewed it to the inside of the short sleeve. Questions?

Anyway, my dear, sweet child loves the shirt. Lately, he’s been loving yellow. He wore it two days in a row this weekend. So it was a winner.