Machine Embroidery Appliqué Part 1

Hello and welcome to my very first blog post!  Today, I'm going to show you how I prepare a t-shirt for machine embroidery appliqué.  The first thing I do is turn the t-shirt inside out--with the front of the shirt facing up, like this:

Next, I fuse a piece of fusible poly mesh onto the approximate area where I'm going to place my design, like this:  

I then use a ruler and chalk pen to mark a "t" in the center of the design area:

This particular t-shirt is a child's size XS/4-5.  I decided to use a 4x4 design with my granddaughter's name underneath it--which turns it into a design that will fit into a 5x7 hoop.  However, I don't have a 5x7 hoop for the machine I'm going to use today so, instead, I'm going to hoop a piece of tear-away washable stabilizer in this 8x8 hoop:  

Next, I find the plastic template do-hickey thing that came with this hoop, place it inside the hoop, and fill in the circles with my pink Sewline mechanical pencil:

Now I connect the circles with my ruler:

(Hopefully, you can see the pink "t" on the hooped stabilizer)

For the next step, I'm going to use this roll of double-sided adhesive tape:

I cut two pieces of tape the approximate length of the sides of the hoop.  So if you use a 5x7 hoop, one piece of tape would be about 5" long--and the other piece would be about 7" long.

Next, I cut those two pieces of tape down the middle:

Now, I press those four pieces of tape down onto the hooped stabilizer just inside the edges of the hoop:

Next, I peel the top layers of paper covering the tape off of all four pieces of tape:

If you look closely, you can see yellowish areas just inside the edges of the hoop.  That is the newly-exposed, top sticky side of the tape.

The next step would be best shown with a video--but I'm limited to photos, so I hope you can get an idea from this:

I'm taking the "t" shape I made on the fusible poly mesh (on the inside of the shirt) and lining it up with the "t" I made on the hooped stabilizer.  Before you do this, you can spray the poly mesh with spray embroidery adhesive--or not; it's up to you.  I kind of "roll" the shirt down onto the hooped stabilizer.

Once it's down, I smooth out any wrinkles--and press it firmly to the tape that's next to the hoop edges.  So now, the shirt is ready for embroidery!  😃