THE FEMINISM BUT MORE

I mentioned to @nicasiosilang that I once tried to explain intersectionality in Mandarin, but ended up with something along the lines of “the… the… feminism… but… more… [how do I say identities?]” To which Nicasio replied, “no no i love it, that on a tshirt: THE FEMINISM BUT MORE.” I had the supplies on hand and had made similar T-shirts before, so this one was born. 🙂

First, I designed the T-shirt by penciling in a text layout, taking measurements of the text I’d written, and drafting a pattern in Photoshop with all-caps Helvetica (because, as Roger says, all-caps Helvetica is TRUTH) to match those measurements as closely as possible.

Then, I numbered the letters from 1 through 4 because I wanted to alternate between four fabrics. I used my clear quilting ruler to take a rough measurement of the combined widths of the letters so I knew how much fabric and heat bond material I’d need.

I cut heat bond material to those measurements and attached them to the wrong side of the fabrics I was using. Then, I followed the outline of the letters I’d printed and painstakingly cut all the fabric out by hand with fabric scissors. :’) I literally hand-kerned the letters and ironed them onto the T-shirt following the heat bond package instructions. After that, I sewed around the edges of the letters to help them stay put through washes.

I also followed this tutorial to add hand-crocheted lace edging to the sleeves. I had to change the width of the blanket stitch spacing to accommodate for my thinner thread, but, other than that, it was pretty straightforward. I also used black thread for the blanket stitch to make the edging look more seamless.

I love this shirt so much. Nicasio is the best for enabling me to do this. As I told Nicasio, the most wonderful things happen when people who make things and people who make people make things get together. 🙂