Kazoo Krew

I seem to be woman of extremes. I don't tend to be ambivalent about anything. Topping my list is of course my lovely wife, Deb, after that sewing is relatively all consuming and then I have Roller Derby and Mountain Biking. My latest project combined sewing and derby. Once I make my wife one, it'll tie her in too.

My roller derby team has this thing for a kazoos and we've decided that we'll be the Kazoo Krew. Kazoos are going to be our thing. Naturally I've concluded that we need t-shirts. When we do this on a larger scale I'll make a screen and just screen printing them, but for practice I cut a stencil out of freezer paper based on a drawing I did.

This tattoo lettering was really easy to space out which was a relief. They came out quite nice. After drawing it out I inked it to make it easier to trace onto the freezer paper. the freezer paper is relatively transparent but the inking just made it easier to trace.

Once it was transferred to the freezer paper, the tedious portion of the project came in as I broke out my exacto knife and began to delicately cut out the letters/imagery. I did the stencil in three layers, one for the kazoo, one for the kazoo detail, and one for the lettering. I next ironed the freezer paper into the proper place. Then I broke out my foam brush and began to paint on the lettering.

Printing Layer 1

Printing Layer 2

Printing Layer 3

Finished Printing

With the printing done I had to deal with fit. I like my clothes to be tight fitting. I wanted to do to this t-shirt what I've done to others of mine in the past. That is to cut off the sleeves, making it kind of a raglan cut without sleeves and then to take in the waist by adding a side seam. This is the shirt I am modeling it on:

One thing that I have found that helps to get the armscye to really snug up to the body is to run some elastic from midway up the bust to the same point on the back. It ends up quite snazzy.

You can just barely see the elastic serged into the seam allowance on the armscye.

There's my nifty little side seam. It's really gives off my little bit of curve fit and flair.

BOOM! I'm quite pleased with the result. Can't wait to unveil it to the team and have to have a party where we all can make our own. Here comes the Kazoo Krew. Toot toot.