Chevron Rainbow Appliqué Kids Tee

Into each day a little rainbow shall shine through the clouds to brighten things up. And if the weather doesn’t cooperate, I’ll sew something!

This chevron rainbow appliqué kids tee project is being shared today because this weekend marks the start of Cork Pride! For the full list of events, visit the official website. It is a wonderful and important week for the LGBTQ+ community. We’ve gone to family day almost every year with Bee’s Godfather’s family. Here are some photos from past Cork Prides. There are more in my IG stories, but more importantly in this story highlight are reminders why Pride weeks and LGBTQ+ awareness, protective legislation, and community support are so essential.

It started with Bumblebee coming home from preschool telling me he needed more rainbow shirts so he could wear one every day. Fair enough. Initially, we looked at a couple stores for ready-made rainbow shirts, but no luck. So, we decided to hunt around in my craft supplies for ideas.

Knowing that we were going the appliqué route, I looked for a long sleeve (more versatile in Irish weather) tee with minimal printing or a design I don’t love. Jackpot! This was his big brother’s tee and the print was never a favorite of mine. Handmade arrows feel a bit like cultural appropriation to me.

Bumblebee went through my fabric larder and found a chevron rainbow print that he actually chose a couple years prior for me to make a Christmas tree skirt or stocking, but neither happened because of life and the pandemic. I pre-washed and dried the fabric, then pressed it. Here is a pre-ironing photo.

I chose to cut a chevron outline to keep the stripes intact and started it on a red and finished on a navy stripe for a ROYGBIV vibe.

Next step was to fold in the cheese. No wait, that is something else. The rainbow fabric fit perfectly over the original printed design!

When I pressed the fabric after pre-washing, I also folded over the edges for a crisp no fray side to the rainbow. So my next step here was to pin that edge to the shirt very flat and even, leaving space to stitch around the edges.

I chose to use white thread for the sewing as it would blend well in the white chevron stripes and along the side. Had I owned variegated rainbow thread, I’d have used that, but I don’t and it’s a wish list item of mine.

I stitched around all the edges and between each color stripe. This secured the fabric to the tee shirt completely. I did an extra couple rows of stitches at the top and bottom to keep the fabric from fraying.

Here is the final shirt all done! That unicorn marshmallow lolly was disgusting BTW.

Here is a look at just the appliqué. It came out very nice and even. This was all done with Bumblebee helping me, so there’s always a margin of error with a kid in my lap.

He put it on immediately and it has been a favorite shirt since I made it in March 2021.

And this is a view after it was washed and dried for the first time. Anticipated puckering but no bubbles or frays of significance.

What would you appliqué on your shirt? If you were to wear the same color(s) for a week, what would it/they be?