Couched Embellishment

A project that my friend Alicia and I had fun with when she visited last year was to embellish purchased shirts with strips of fabric.
Hers is a linen shirt with a damask weave. We had pulled all the red fabrics from my stash and rotary cut wavy strips in various widths. These were put into a laundry basket and drawn at random to decorate our shirts.
The underarm seams were opened so the garment would lie flat.The red strips of fabric were sewn to the shirt by couching yarn down the center length of the fabric strip.
Since posting my tutorial for couching yarn, I've added another tool to free up both hands. The thread stand meant for feeding thread off big cones works well to hold the yarn in the correct position for couching it down the center of these strips.
I had purchased a light-weight plain weave linen shirt to make my jacket. My initial intention was to space the strips much like Alicia's shirt. However, it "told" me otherwise. Initially I couched yarn to the linen between the strips. I ended up going back to fill in all the spaces. This meant going into my stash and cutting more fabrics. So, I pulled fabrics that went with the reds.
It also indicated that it wanted to be a jacket rather than a shirt. If I had known this up front, I would've looked for a colored shirt. Red, orange, pink, or even black would've been great.
The edges of my jacket are finished with couched yarn. I did this two times on each edge to stabilize them as well as for a more substantial finish. I ended up using a whole skein of yarn. I love the texture of the raw edged strips and couched yarn. This 3/4 sleeve length jacket is light-weight for wearing in the Spring and Fall here in Knoxville and cool summer evenings in Michigan.