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Embroidering on Sleeves

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Any ordinary long-sleeved T-shirt or sweatshirt can be easily transformed with fabulous embroidered sleeves. Get our best hooping techniques, placement ideas, and more in this fashionable project.

Project Needs & Notes:

- Shirt or sweatshirt
- Medium-weight cutaway stabilizer
- Temporary spray adhesive
- Air-erase pen
- Seam ripper

The designs used in this tutorial include C5681, Dream Border and M5932, Flutterby Flourish Spray (Candlewicking).

This project was featured in the following:
Embroidering on Sweatshirts Lookbook

Designs Used

Use a seam ripper to open the seam on the sleeve or your shirt or sweatshirt. Open it from the outer edge of the cuff all the way up to the shoulder.

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 embroidery software. If you do not have embroidery software, Wilcom's TrueSizer is a free program to use.

Center the template over the elbow area. Mark the center point and the horizontal and vertical axis lines.

Remove the template.

Spray a piece of medium weight cutaway stabilizer with temporary adhesive and smooth it on the back of the sleeve.

Hoop the fabric and stabilizer together, aligning the marks on the hoop with the marks on the fabric.

Attach the hoop to the machine and load the design.

Move the hoop so that the needle is aligned with the center point on the fabric.

Embroider the design.

After embroidering, trim the excess stabilizer away.

Leave about 1/2" of excess stabilizer around the edges of the design.

Align the raw edges of the sleeve together, right sides together.

Pin in place, and sew a 1/4" seam along the raw edges. To finish the seam, you can also zigzag stitch or serge the raw edges.

Turn the sleeve right side out for wearing.

Personalize the embroidery to match your style, or give an embroidered shirt to friends and family.

Borders and sprays are particularly nice fits for sleeves, as they tend to be long and narrow. Change the colors to match your style, or your shirt or sweatshirt!