Adding Embroidery to Clothing

The first piece of clothing that I tried to embroider on was a denim jacket for my first niece. I was determined to create something for her that I had not ever created for anyone else before (she’s one of the sweetest, cutest kids ever and she made me an aunt, so….). At this point, I had already been embroidering on fabric for a couple of years, so I knew that the change in fabric would present some new challenges. Thankfully, because it was a denim jacket for a baby, it was softer than your average denim, so I kinda lucked out there.

Other than needing to be flexible with working with something bulkier, and using a bigger needle to make sure that I wouldn’t snap it, the project actually went quite well! I used my favorite water soluble pen to sketch my design on the denim, loaded it up in an embroidery hoop, and got to work! I didn’t feel the need to use any stabilizer because the denim didn’t stretch or pull in the hoop, which was a total win as well.

More recently, I decided that I needed to embroider something for myself! (I rarely do this, which I’m fine with, but it was time!) I’ve been really into embroidering hens lately, so I wanted to spruce up one of my favorite pull-over sweatshirts with a small hen near the collar. I have started making and selling embroidery transfer stickers so I took one of them, stuck it to the sweatshirt where I wanted it, put the fabric in an embroidery hoop, and added my hen in no time at all! The transfer sticker doesn’t include the chicken tracks that I ended up adding, but it was no big deal to add them!