Cat Face Sweatshirt

I came across this sweatshirt on Pinterest a while ago and pinned it, thinking it would be pretty easy to replicate with a fabric marker. I was on the lookout for a decent sweatshirt while thrifting, but just couldn't find one that I liked. When I was doing laundry the other day, though, I realized that I already had a sweatshirt I could use! I made this seafoam-colored sweatshirt when I was testing out my Dolman Sleeve Top, but don't wear it much because let's face it, it's just a plain sweatshirt (albeit in a great color). Perfect candidate for Put a Cat on It!

I didn't want mine to be a carbon copy of the Opening Ceremony cat face, so I pulled up a picture of Walnut and sketched a line drawing of his most prominent features: his eyes, nose, disapproving mouth, whiskers, and eyebrowskers (if that last one isn't a real word, it really should be. I'm going to enter it into my Microsoft Word dictionary so that it doesn't get red squiggly lines under it anymore, and then it will be official). I re-drew the face onto a piece of tissue paper, then used a pin to prick tiny holes all along the lines. This way, when I drew over the lines with the fabric marker, they would leave a faint connect-the-dot map on the fabric so that I would know where to color.

Drawn on a scrap of tissue paper, then taped to the sweatshirt (don't forget to insert a piece of cardboard inside the sweatshirt to keep the ink from seeping through to the back side!) and pricked with a pin. Oops, my pinhead is the same sea-foam color as the sweatshirt!

Trace over the lines with fabric marker several times so that it bleeds through. 

When you remove the tissue paper, there should be a faint line to trace. I kept my tissue paper taped down until I was sure that I could see all the lines. 

The finished sweatshirt! I used a Tee Juice Fine Point Fabric Art Marker, purchased at Staples; both this and my previous project involving this marker held up just fine in the wash, no fading or anything!

After I heat-set the the drawing, I tried on the sweatshirt and couldn't stop grinning at how silly Walnut's facial expression looks! I know they say cats don't really do facial expressions (almost all of the faces look the same!), but I'm pretty sure my guy is communicating at least as much disapproval as a rabbit.

If you want to make your own Walnut face sweatshirt, either the lazy way (with a fabric marker) or the real way (with embroidery thread), you can download the line drawing here.