Cool Cat Shirt Applique - Hand-Me-Down REHAB

After whipping up a bunch of shorts and capris for the kids I ended up with a pile of scraps like this. 

Scraps crying out to be turned into appliques to make coordinating outfits.

I especially loved these shorts I made for Boy.  I love the bold colors and assymmetry and the cute little side notches in the side since they were made from a polo shirt.

 After I made Boy's striped shorts, I decided he needed could use a shirt to match it.  I thought a cat would be perfect for him.  He likes to pretend he's a cat a lot (several times a day) by meowing, and I figured it would be a design he'd recognize and like. 

I went Google image searching for a cat silhouette, hoping to find one that was not only cute, but also free to use, so I could share it with you.  I sure got what I was looking for when I found this one on Little Scraps of Heaven Design. 

I used the method from this post to enlarge the image on my screen to 250%.  Then I traced it onto paper, so I could modify the tail.  I wanted to make it an S-shape for Boy's name.  (If you ask him what S stands for he will say, "S is for snake and BOY!"  Pretty funny...anyway...)

Then I traced the design onto Heat'n Bond Lite, applied it to scraps from the fabric I made the shorts out of, and put it on new shirt (size 4, so he can wear it a while.)  I ironed it well, making sure all the sides were well stuck down and then sewed around the edges.  I've found that you want to sew fairly close to the edge for these...about an 1/8 of an inch or so...for the edges to still look nice after a lot of washings.  If you want a full tutorial for applique, see this post.

And he had fun wearing it for his first time to our family reunion last week...

And if you're interested, you can download the printable pattern here.