I Heart Michigan

I can't think of a better way to kick of the Kids Clothes Week Challenge! Here We Go!

I have crush on my home state of the mitten. The lovely summer we had enjoying all it's water ways and sandy beaches only fueled the fire.

Wanting to share the love with my littles I searched out a simple shirt with a pic of the great lakes or just the outline of the state. Would you believe that this was hard to find? I didn't think it would be but for some reason all of the kids shirts had silly sayings or some wording like "Made in Michigan",  personally don't get the appeal.

While being lulled to sleep by the waves of Lake Michigan I had an idea, combine my many loves to make a great shirt! My kids, Michigan and Alabama Chanin style sewing.

I started with some plain shirts from Target, scraps from another project I'm working on, two pairs of tiny hands and lots of love. CHEESE!

Do you see that black spot??? Can you believe I sent him to school in this before taking any pictures? It was the only day he came home with not just paint but BLACK paint on his clothes. AHHHH! (don't worry it mostly came out)

Not sure if you have ever traced your littles' hands but, it is really hard. It's one thing to do it for a fun picture but it's a whole other ballgame when your trying to make a template for an applique. I needed their tiny fingers to be just so. Thankfully they were into the whole process and we managed to do it in about three tries.

Oh my gosh! I just just now realized that if youj are not a native Michigander or know someone who is you may have no idea that we here in the Great Lakes State often use our hand to show our location or what have you.

I ironed these, I swear!

After using a basic straight stitch for the applique I backed stitched on a little love for our town: Ann Arbor. Now don't go looking to compare the location to it's map counterpart, it's a heart in the general abstract vicinity of A2.

I kinda wanna make one for myself. Will. Have. To. Wait. Focus on the kids...