Embroidered Hey June Sheridan Sweater

Over the last year or so I've been enjoying dabbling in a bit of embroidery. I've made a few pieces that I'm planning on turning into a wall of hoop art, but with my love of sewing it was only a matter of time before I gave embroidering clothes a try, wasn't it?

I've been considering what I could try for a while, but then Love Embroidery magazine solved the problem for me. As soon as I saw the embroidered sweatshirt on the cover of their issue 12 (available to buy here), I knew I had to give it a try. The lovely floral design by Jenny Billingham of Flynn & Mabel is just my cup of tea!

I considered whether I had anything in my wardrobe already that I could use, but I only have one or two plain sweatshirts and I wanted to keep them plain so they're more neutral. My favourite sweatshirt that I've made is the Hey June Sheridan sweater so that seemed like the best bet to use. If you're interested, you can read my review of the Sheridan sweater here.

I had a look around for some suitable fabric in a blue or turquoise colour (which seemed like the best options to complement the floral design), and in the end settled on a pale blue lightweight sweatshirt jersey from Plush Addict.

Once the sweater was finished, I then started to consider the embroidery. Having never embroidered on clothing before, I wasn't entirely sure what the best stabilisers to use would be. I then saw a recommendation for DMC Magic Paper (if you're in the UK, I got mine from Wool Warehouse) on Instagram (I can't remember who it was from now), so I decided to give that a try. 

It's really easy to use - you just draw your design onto the paper, peel off the backing and stick it straight to your garment. Once you've finished stitching, the stabiliser can be dissolved in water. Although I will say that it took longer than it was meant to for my stabiliser to dissolve, and having worn the sweatshirt I think there might still be a bit of residue there.

When I came to transfer the pattern, I realised that the space between the neckline and shoulder seams is obviously much narrower on my Sheridan sweater than on the sweatshirt used for the magazine sample so I had to adjust/omit a couple of small details on one side in order to make it fit.

As for the colours, mine aren't quite the same as recommended in the pattern. I'm lucky enough to have quite a plentiful supply of embroidery thread that used to belong to an auntie who was no longer using it so I used the closest equivalents to the pattern from what I had available.

I really enjoyed embroidering the pattern - it was fun to see the flowers and foliage gradually emerge stitch by stitch. All of the stitches were ones I've used before so it was fairly relaxing, although I did find that I had to restrict myself to short periods working on the embroidery because the weight of the sweater and the thickness of the fabric made my wrists hurt a bit if I worked on it for too long.

I'm really pleased with the finished sweater. There's room for improvement in my embroidery, but I think it looks good from a distance and most people won't inspect it in as much detail or be as critical about it as I would! I'll definitely be trying embroidering on clothes again in the future - have you ever given it a try?