Shawn Mosch

Grandma Shirt

If you are looking for a great Mother’s Day gift idea, you will love this Grandma Shirt project. It is created using the knockout text process that I taught you in my last post. If you missed that tutorial you can click HERE.

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Grandma Shirt Supplies:

Shirt
HTV/Iron On Vinyl – you will need two colors for this project. I use Siser vinyl, and provided links for you below.
Weeding Tool
Parchment Paper
Heat Source – I recommend a Heat Press
Cricut cutting machine
Cricut cutting mat

Optional supplies:
Shirt Alignment Tool
Shirt Form for pressing

I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest.

Over the years I have gotten Siser vinyl from a variety of places, including My Craft Source. When you shop at My Craft Source be sure to use code ShawnMosch to get 5% off your order!

I have also ordered from Expression Vinyl and Heat Transfer Warehouse. All of these stores carry Siser brand vinyl and I love that I can order large rolls or small sheets. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders.

Cutting Your Design

We are going to jump right in to cutting the design for your Grandma shirt, since we already covered how to create the design in my last tutorial. If you missed that one just click HERE and then come back for putting the project together. Since we will be putting this on a shirt, we are cutting the design from iron on vinyl, which is also called heat transfer vinyl (HTV).

Make Sure to Mirror or Flip your Design

When you look at HTV you will see that one side is shiny and has a plastic feel. This is the clear carrier sheet that comes attached to the HTV. Place that side down on your Cricut cutting mat. We will want to cut our design into the other side of the HTV. Because we are cutting into the back of the HTV, we need to mirror our design, otherwise t will cut out backwards.

There are two ways you can do this. Before you hit Make It in Design Space you can use the Flip button and flip your entire design horizontally to mirror it. I do this so that I do not have to remember to click Mirror for every mat I am cutting. I show this in the image on the left below. The second way is to hit the little Mirror button in the mat preview screen of Cricut Design Space. I show that in the image on the right below.

I use the Siser EasyWeed HTV, and I love it. I cut it on the iron on setting on my Cricut. Once I cut my vinyl I like to trim the sheet straight across so that I can work with just the small pieces I need.

Weeding Your Design

Now we have to weed our design. Weeding is the process of removing the parts that you do not want to go on your project. For our Grandma shirt we are going to just want the letters and words on the shirt. I like to start by weeding out the centers of my letters. This helps me to better see what I need to weed away. Another thing you can do is go back and look at your original design in Design Space. This is another reason I like to make my colors match as close as I can to the actual vinyl I will be using for the project. That way if I have to go back and look at the original design I know I want to KEEP anything that is colored in my design.

For this Grandma shirt project, since we did the knockout text method, part of the center of that A actually connected to the knock out part, so when I pulled out the center it really helped to get the weeding for the rest of the Grandma letters going.

Pressing Your Design

Once everything is weeded it is time to press your design on to the shirt. Make sure to give the shirt a quick press before applying the first layer. This makes for a nice smooth surface. I started with the word Grandma just so I could center that and get it positioned perfectly. I used my Planet Flame Heat Press and followed the directions on my Sister vinyl packaging, placing a piece of parchment paper over the top of the design.

After I removed the clear carrier sheet, I let my Grandma shirt cool down to the touch. Then I place the inner names on the design and pressed these. If you are at all worried about melting your HTV when doing additional layers of colors, you can reduce your press time slightly for each layer as you go. Then at the end run your fingers over the design and if there are any portions that feel like they are lifting up, press it again.