Homemade Wonder Under

My mom gave Luke a train shirt and the second he tried it on he immediately started crying and said it was "ichhhhhee"(itchy). I figured he wasn't making it up, since he loves trains and begs to wear Thomas everyday.

The shirt had a train applique on it and the stitching was pretty rough on the inside. Because of my mad sewing skills (total sarcasm intended), I knew of a product called "Wonder Under". I've never used it, because I've never really needed to. All the shirts I've ever made for Luke have never irritated his chest- and that's not to say that they never have- he's just never complained about it. But from being in the sewing world I've come across numerous blogs, articles, and e-mails about this stuff called Wonder Under. It's basically an iron on patch to go over any itchy stitching on a shirt. Many times baby/children's stores will use it on their appliqued shirts (I know I've seen shirts/onesies at Carters with WU).

Being slightly frugal and not wanting to spend anything, and wanting to get this project done ASAP since there's no telling how long it's going to stay chilly (his train shirt is long sleeved), I decided to make my own Wonder Under.

I scoured my "solids" fabric scraps bin and found a piece of lime green knit. NOTHING goes to waste in this house and even old t-shirts get cut up and we use them as rags or I keep them with my scraps for projects like this.

I decided since Wonder Under is basically just iron on backing, that Heat and Bond lite would accomplish the same thing. I use heat and bond on ALL my appliques so they have that extra sticky layer to keep them in place in the wash. Also I had plenty of HnB on hand (cheers to using what we have and keeping this project at $0!)

I cut the lime knit to size and then cut the HnB to the exact size of the knit. I wanted it to go ALL the way to the edges so it wouldn't curl under (like knits have a tendency to do).

Next it was just a matter of ironing on the HnB to the knit

peeling off the backing,

placing it on the shirt and ironing it on. Pretty easy!

The most important part? Making sure that it was toddler approved. I told Luke his train shirt wouldn't itch anymore and that he needed to try it on for me. Sure enough he put it on and was off playing, never to remember the whole incident again. I say that's a win!

I always tell my sewing customers to wash their shirts inside out to protect the applique, but in this case I will keep the shirt facing the right way to protect the Heat n Bond.

I will say this was super easy because his shirt was a dark red. If this was a white onesie any colored knit would show through and look like a big patch. Maybe on onesies Wonder Under would be the better choice since it's more sheer and less obvious than knit? Just a thought. But for keeping this project cheap (free) and easy (less than 10 minutes), I accomplished my goal!