Give denim shirts, jackets, and jeans embroidered embellishments by stitching over the seams. Get our top tips and tricks for sewing over seams in this tutorial!
Supplies & Materials:
Project Materials or Supplies
- Medium-weight (2.5 ounce) cutaway stabilizer
- Air-erase pen or other marking tool
- Masking tape
- Temporary spray adhesive (Gunold KK100)
The design used in this tutorial include:
- D4165, Whimsical Wings Spray
When choosing designs to stitch over seams, select ones that are light and airy without a lot of stitch-filled areas. Embroidering fill stitches or stitch-filled areas over seams can result in a "lumpy" look.
Gather Materials:
To determine if the seam can or should be embroidered over, use the "pinch" test. That test determines how thick a seam is.
Roll the seam up and pinch it between your thumb and forefinger. Measure the thickness of the seam. If it's more than 1/8" thick, don't embroider over it.
In the examples to the left, the light blue jacket's seam is 1/4" thick, and the grey-blue jacket's seam is 1/8" thick. The bottom jacket was the one selected for this demonstration.
Start Embroidering:
A template is a printout of a design, and it's an excellent tool to plan where to stitch.
Print a template of the design from your embroidery software. If you do not have an embroidery software, take a look at our helpful video on using dielines.
We also recommend Wilcom's Hatch software which comes in different levels depending on what you'd like to use the software for. Hatch Organizer works well to view your designs, print dielines and templates, change design colors, and create basic design layouts. (This is an affiliate link. We may earn commission on purchases made with this link.)
Arrange and rearrange the template on your garment until you have it where you want it.
Then, tape it in place. You can place the hoop over the template to see which seams will be hooped.
Using an air-erase pen (or other marking tool), mark the center point of the template on the fabric, as well as the horizontal and vertical axis lines.
Lay the garment right side down.
Spray a piece of cutaway stabilizer with temporary adhesive, like Gunold's KK100. Smooth the stabilizer on the inside of the garment, on the back of the area that will be embroidered.
Hoop the fabric and stabilizer together, lining up the marks on the garment with the marks on the hoop. The 1/8" seams can be hooped over with ease.
Attach the hoop to the machine and load the design. Move the hoop so that the needle is right over the center point.
Use a size 11 or 75/11 sharp sewing needle when embroidering on denim or over seams.
Raise the embroidery foot as high as it can go to prevent it from catching on the seams. You may wish to reduce the stitching speed also.
Embroider the design.
After embroidering, trim the excess stabilizer away. Leave about 1/2" around the design.
Sewing over the seams of your projects lets you take creative control of your project. Use to update a denim jacket, a pair of jeans, or a shirt!
