How to Embroider on Jackets

Take a jacket from basic to beautiful with a bit of well-placed embroidery! We'll show you how to stitch on the back, sides, and cuff of a jacket to add creative style and sophistication.

Project Needs & Notes:

- Jacket
- Medium-weight (2.5 ounce) cutaway stabilizer
- Air-erase pen for marking
- Temporary spray adhesive
- Heavy sewing thread (match color to thread color on outer seams)
- Seam ripper
- Hand sewing needle
- Ruler

The designs featured in this tutorial include:
M15381, Golden Gleam Spray
M15387, Golden Gleam Border
M15389, Golden Gleam Accessory

Start by taking off the jacket sleeve and looking at the two seams. Denim or heavy weight jackets usually have two different types of seams.

The first (shown on the left) is a normal seam. Always try to rip this one open when possible as you can resew it easily on your home machine.

The other (shown on the right) is a specialized seam where you can see the stitching on the outside, and if you rip it open and the sleeve is too narrow to fit on your machine, so you will have to sew it closed by hand.

Now it's time to prepare the sleeve for embroidery.

Using a seam ripper, open up one seam of the sleeve to about 10" from the edge of the cuff or until the cuff can lay flat.

In this tutorial, we seam ripped open the seam with the stitching showing, so that we did not have to also remove the cuff.

This means we will be hand sewing it closed later. If you prefer to machine sew, make sure to take off the cuff and open the other seam.

Lay the cuff flat on the table with the right side of the fabric facing up.

A template, or printout of a design, is an excellent tool to help with placement.

Print a template of the design from your embroidery software. If you do not have embroidery software, Wilcom's TrueSizer is a free program to use.

Arrange the design where you would like it on the jacket. Mark the center points and the vertical and horizontal axis lines of the design.

Cut a piece of medium-weight cutaway stabilizer a bit larger than the hoop.

Spray with temporary adhesive and smooth it on the wrong side of the fabric behind where the embroidery will sew.

Using a ruler and an air-erase pen, extend the vertical and horizontal axis lines on the fabric and stabilizer.

Hoop the jacket and stabilizer together, lining up the marks on the fabric with the marks on the hoop.

Some of the fabric may not be hooped, but the spray adhesive will help keep it affixed to the stabilizer while embroidering.

Also be sure to avoid any buttons or hardware in the embroidery area as they could damage your needle or machine.

In this example, the cuff was hooped slightly lower than the marks to avoid the buttons.

Attach the hoop onto the machine and load the design.

Move the hoop so that the needle is directly over the center point drawn on the fabric.

Embroider the design.

After embroidering, cut away the excess stabilizer from the back of the embroidery.

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

Line up the raw open edges so that they are lined up as they were before you seam ripped them.

For the seam where the stitching shows on the outside, carefully hand stitch over where the stitching was sitting before.

Make sure to match your thread to the color used previously as well. For a normal seam, turn the jacket inside out, and line the raw edges up with the right sides together.

Pin and sew along the line where the stitching was before.

Then mirror the design using embroidery software or your embroidery machine, and repeat to embroider onto the opposite sleeve.

To embroider on the back of the jacket, print a template of the design and arrange it on the back.

Using an air-erase pen, mark the center point along the vertical and horizontal axis lines.

Spray a piece of cutaway stabilizer bigger than the hoop, and smooth the pocket onto the center of the stabilizer piece.

Extend the vertical and horizontal axis lines onto the fabric to help with hooping.

Hoop the fabric and stabilizer together tightly while lining up the axis lines with the marks on the hoop.

Attach the hoop onto the machine and load the design.

Move the hoop so that the needle is directly over the center point drawn on the fabric.

Embroider the design.

Once finished, trim away the excess stabilizer on the back of the embroidery.

To embroider accents on the sides of the jacket, print a template of the design and arrange it where you'd like the accent to go.

Using an air-erase pen, mark the center point along the vertical and horizontal axis lines.

Cut a piece of medium-weight cutaway stabilizer a bit larger than the hoop.

Spray with temporary adhesive and smooth on the wrong side of the fabric behind where the embroidery will sew.

Using a ruler and an air-erase pen, extend the vertical and horizontal axis lines on the fabric and stabilizer.

Hoop the jacket and stabilizer together, lining up the marks on the fabric with the marks on the hoop.

Some of the fabric may not be hooped, but the spray adhesive will help keep it affixed to the stabilizer while embroidering. Also be sure to avoid any buttons or hardware in the embroidery area as they could damage your needle or machine.

Attach the hoop onto the machine and load the design.

Move the hoop so that the needle is directly over the center point drawn on the fabric.

Embroider the design.

After embroidering, trim away the excess stabilizer on the back of the embroidery.

Then mirror the embroidery file, and stitch it out on the opposite side of the jacket.