Another Approach to a Stain: Cover it Up

This is a wool jersey t-shirt I made in the fall from the Ottobre Design Creative Workshop 303 t shirt pattern (it comes in an envelope rather than one of the Finnish pattern magazines. I got mine from Banberry Place.). The fabric is a wonderful merino knit from Fabric.com (long sold out), a hard sort of thing to find. Naturally, I managed to get a stubborn grease stain right on the most, um, prominent area of the shirt.

Stain removal efforts having failed, I reluctantly decided to try an embellishment. It's strange that I should resist "decorating" my clothing so strenuously, as I really like how this turned out.

Steam-A-Seam 2 Lite was applied to the back of these cute motifs from scraps of an Alexander Henry corduroy print. Then I carefully cut out the shapes, arranged them and ironed them into place for a permanent bond. My wacky, jerky free motion stitching around the edges ensures durability and is kind of ugly-cute in its own right.

Here is a closer view. I wish I had positioned the applique a little higher, but...it's fine.