Rainbow Marin
Blogger: Sarah Alves Ribeiro
Rainbow Marin
Appliqué is a fun and impressive way to personalize your children’s clothing (or your own!). While it looks rather complicated it’s actually quite simple. This tutorial will take you through the basics of appliquéing a rainbow on the Marin shirt, but feel free to apply these techniques to any design you dream up.
To begin, trace the Marin front top pattern piece onto another sheet of paper and draw out the seam and hem allowances (shown in red). For the Marin top the seam allowance is 3/8” (1 cm) and the hem is 5/8” (1.6 cm). Make sure to account for the folding up of the hem and topstitching, so in this case I made allowance for 1 ¼” (3.1 cm).
Draw a vertical line down the center to use as a guide for keeping the design placement centered and the arches even. Now it's time to begin the rainbow. Draw the first arch. Feel free to use a generic coloring page print out as a guide. Next, decide the desired width of the arch. For this size 6 I went with 1” (2.5 cm). Take a ruler and measure out 1” (2.5 cm) along the inside of the first arch.
Now draw in the negative space between the arches by measuring ½” (1.3 cm) all along the inside of the first arch (shown in red).
Continue this pattern until all the rainbow arches have been drawn, and then cut them out.
Grab some scrap fabric and cut out the rainbows using the paper pattern pieces as a guide. Also, cut out the Marin shirt fabric pieces from your main fabric.
Arrange the arches onto the Marin front top piece, making sure to leave room for hem and seam allowances, and begin applying hem tape (or by using a fabric glue stick) arch by arch.
Using a walking foot, if available, slowly sew all along the edges of the arches with a ballpoint needle and a straight stitch. The edges of the knit fabric will not fray, but they will curl up a bit after washing so it’s best to get as close to the edge as possible. I use a 1/8" (0.3 cm) seam allowance with my needle to the right 2 positions.
You can finish here and sew up your shirt as instructed, or continue to embellish it with embroidery. You can find lots of videos here for basic hand embroidery stitches and techniques.
