Choo Choo Shirt - Applique Pattern

So here it finally is. Got the scanner to work. Yeah!

Last week the kids and I took a morning "off" and headed to The Museum of Transportation where we recently purchased a membership. The place is a little boy's dream with all sorts of old trains to explore! I love that we can climb up inside and pull the levers and ring the bells. And you can ride the real street car and the mini train too! Jojo walks around saying "BIG CHOO CHOO!" the whole time.

The museum also provided me with the inspiration to make a choo choo tshirt for Jojo. I'm not a big fan of all the "Thomas" gear out there and had a really hard time finding a train applique pattern that wasn't babyish. Then I didn't want one that was a whole train. I just wanted a cool engine. I ended up doing a search in Google Images for train engines. I then narrowed it to only line drawings and ended up with  this train coloring page. I did some printing, resizing, cutting, bleaching, ironing, sewing, and came up with this.

First I went over to Puddle Jumping Designs and re-read her really great tutorial on how to applique. So yeah, go read it. The directions are really good. Next I cut out my train pieces. I had to make a few bigger so that I had some overlap and such. I made it easier for you by providing the pattern pieces here. Note, they are numbered. Iron the ones down first, followed by the twos, threes & fours.

See, I cut them out and practiced laying them out. See that stray wheel. I decided that my train needed to be going somewhere though and was dying to try the bleach pen! Go to I am Momma Hear Me Roar for a great tutorial on how to use the bleach pen. I can't wait to do more with this!!!

Bleach pen train tracks.

Bleach pen tracks the next morning! Washed and dried.

Train ironed down. I used SteamaSeam2 to attach my pieces. I then sewed around the pieces with black thread and a straight stitch.

See, he likes it!!



So if you want to make your boy a cool choo choo train tshirt, here is the link to the pattern pieces once again.




Train Applique Pattern
train coloring page
Bleach Pen Tutorial