How to Make a Ruffled Heart T-shirt

So, I have all these colorful T-shirts that I've been using for crafts, and I love the look of those little girls' ruffled heart t-shirts. I happened to have a colorful Tangerine Tango T-shirt and my daughter had a plain white T-shirt, so I decided to put one together myself.

To make the ruffles, take the T-shirt you'll use for the heart and cut it into strips about 2 inches wide. The T-shirt I used had seams down each side from the armpit to the hem, so I cut horizontally along the bottom of the T-shirt then trimmed the seam off each side to get the strip you see here. Doing that would make two of these. If your T-shirt doesn't have seams down each side, you would end up with a large loop after each horizontal cut which you could cut in two to give you these strips.

To turn your strips into a ruffle, stitch a long stitch down the middle of the strip (I set my machine on the longest setting - 5), and do not back-stitch the beginning or the end of your stitch.

Hold the strip at one end, and pull one of the threads (either the top or bottom, but not both) in one direction (toward you) while pushing the material in the other direction (away from you).

You'll end up with a ruffle like this! Space the ruffles evenly by sliding the material along the thread, then place it onto your T-shirt and pin it into place. Continue making the ruffles and placing them onto your T-shirt until you have the size and placement you want.

You'll want to be sure to place the centers of the ruffles as close to one another as possible, otherwise when you wash it, you'll end up with gaps inside the heart in which the T-shirt underneath shows through.

Once you have everything pinned, simply sew the ruffles onto the shirt (taking extra care not to hit any pins!), and you're done!