I knew after making my Captain America floral shield sweater that my next project would be a Black Widow T-shirt. However, instead of using floral fabric, I wanted something with more of a watercolor feel—one of the lines from The Avengers that stuck with me is, “I’ve got red in my ledger—I’d like to wipe it out.” That conjures up images of red ink, and that was the vibe I was going for with this shirt.
Originally, I was going to get this beautiful hand-dyed fabric from HandmadeByElaine33 on Etsy:
I was particularly drawn to that color palette because I wanted to have the top half of the Black Widow symbol be red and the bottom half be indigo/black, to symbolize that she’s turning the red in her ledger into black. Unfortunately, the cost of the fabric plus shipping just wasn’t feasible for me, so I purchased some similar fabric from a different seller.
I first drew the pattern for the Black Widow symbol in Photoshop. The symbol varies a lot, and I’m not sure if it ever shows up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), so I scanned in the cover of an issue of Edmonson & Noto’s run of Black Widow and chose the narrower of the two symbols to copy.
After that, it was a quick process of cutting out the no-sew iron-on adhesive, adhering it to the fabric, cutting out the symbol along the pattern, and adhering it onto the shirt after cutting a boatneck into the shirt. I have more details on that process in my femme is not compliance post if you’re interested in how that works.
The necklace was also pretty easy to make. I’ve been wanting a little silver arrow necklace ever since I saw Scarlett Johansson wearing one in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The one I created still isn’t dainty enough for my liking, but it’s still quite nice.
I first had to paint over the brass charm I bought to make it silver. That process went by pretty quickly, and the end result blends in fairly well with the other jewelry components.
To create the necklace, I cut the necklace chain in half, attached one end of the arrow with a jump ring through the hole in the fletchings, and attached the other end by looping the jump ring around the shaft behind the arrowhead to secure the charm in place.
The shirt and necklace together only took about an hour or so to make over a couple of days. There are some imperfections with both, but, overall, I’m satisfied with how they turned out.
You can download the Black Widow iron-on pattern here to create your own Black Widow items. Because the pattern is a simple geometric shape, I don’t require credit if you use the pattern, but a link here to your finished piece would be greatly appreciated. 🙂
You made the necklace!? Saw the pic on another social media platform (instagram maybe?) and thought you’d bought it. Looks so good. I’m super intrigued by this patina paint. I find craft stores really exciting yet also overwhelming.
Yes, I did! Unfortunately, the patina paint isn’t very sturdy—at least, not for the application here. On a necklace where there isn’t a jump ring that can move along the charm, the patina paint might stay on longer, but it rubbed off easily here. I’m going to have to replace the charm with an actual silver/pewter charm, because I don’t want to keep repainting the brass one.