DIY homemade letters

[phisigbabe]

Has anyone ever made their own sorority t-shirts and hoodies using a silkscreen or sew-on/iron-on fabric patterns? Can it come out as good as a professional? Also these would be strictly for personal use and I would only create shirts for myself (and maybe pass them down to my little one day). If you have pics of your homemade letters that would be great too.

Thanks

[brwn skn 79]

nope.......rather have em looking nice and crisp...

[Xidelt]

Letter me greek has a web site where you can buy inexpensive iron on letters. It might be worth a try.

[truelies]

My little was initiated last weekend and I gave her a shirt with iron-on letters. The first shirt I burned, the second shirt was somewhat of a success and the third time I used velour letters and accidentally ironed them sticky side up and my iron now proudly displays my letters. This was my first time ever ironing, mind you.

My advice? Don't do it unless you are super crafty and good at that stuff. We have a few sisters that make AMAZING shirts.

[Nanners52674]

I have and their Phi Sig letters.

It was a lot of work, and the materials were only a little bit cheaper than ordering. I still wear the 2 I made but I've since bought stitched ones.

[TinyDancer98]

I know my campus is unique in this respect, but all the sororities at my school make handmade letters. They're cheap to make- all you really need is some fabric, contact paper (like Heat 'n Bond) and clothing to put your letters on. You iron the contact paper to your fabric, trace the letters on, cut them out and iron them to the shirt. People then either sew them or puffy paint around the edges. Sewing takes longer, but makes for a long-lasting set of letters (puffy paint tends to crack after a while and shouldn't be put in the dryer). The fun thing with making letters is that you don't have to stick with the usual letter stencil; you can try out different "fonts" and make some really unique and fun shirts. They're also cheap to make, so many of the sororities make matching letters for informal recruitment events, fundraisers, intramurals, and other events. During our initiation week, we make handmade shirts and bags for our littles.

Professional letters definitely have a nice neat look about them, but I've only got a few sets of professional letters and the handmade ones tend to mean more to me (with the possible exception of my pledge class letters). If you're careful about it, you can also machine-sew homemade letters to look professional (although it's fun to make unique letters!). I'll see if I can get a photo to put up for you.

[alum]

I have stitched letters on shirts for my daughter and her "family". The following is what I have discovered through trial and error:

For tshirts:

1. Use a heavy-weight cotton tshirt (the ones sold at AC Moore are decent)

2. Use a heavyweight interfacing

For sweatshirts and tshirts

1. Fraycheck the letters before sewing. Dritz FrayCheck won't discolor the fabric or leave a residue.

3. Use a quilting ruler to make sure everything is really lined up and centered; don't just eyeball it.

4. Use Heat and Bond for the fusible.

5. Satin-stitch, don't zigzag. Set your satin-stitch to a longer width than the default setting.

6. Prewash/shrink whatever garment you are going to use. That goes for the letter fabrics as well.

7. Cut your letter templates out of a clear substance (I use the plastic that is used to make quilting stencils) so that you can see how the fabric will look as an actual letter vs. on the bolt.

There are so many novelty fabrics available now that you are bound to find a motif with a theme that is relevent. Unless it's a really tiny print like the 1930's reproduction lines, you may have to fussy-cut the fabric so that the print is really visible.