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?

Hey June Handmade Sheridan Sweater Sewing Pattern Review

For my first sewing project of 2020, I felt like making something nice and simple to get me back into the swing of things after Christmas. I also fancied trying a new pattern, and wanted to go for something that will be comfy and cosy to wear for the rest of the winter. Thankfully, the Hey June Handmade Sheridan sweater ticks all of those boxes!

On the face of it the Sheridan sweater is a simple pattern, but it comes with a number of interesting options. There are two necklines (the crew neck that I used and a built-up bateau neckline), three sleeve options (my cuffed bishop sleeves, an elasticated bishop sleeve or wide bell sleeve) and also three hem variations (a cropped hem, regular banded hem or the cropped banded hem that I chose). As you can interchange the various options, that means you could get quite a few different sweaters out of this one sewing pattern so it's fairly good value for money!

The Sheridan sweater pattern was released towards the end of last year and I was instantly drawn to the cuffed bishop sleeves. They're a bit different from anything in patterns I already own, and I thought they looked like a good sleeve style for me. I'm always drawn to the drama of bishop sleeves, but then the practical side of my mind kicks in and I think that they'd just get in my way when I was wearing them or I'd end up accidentally dipping them in my food! The deep cuffs of the Sheridan sweater seemed like a great way of getting sleeve volume but keeping all the extra fabric away from my hands and therefore hopefully out of trouble.

The sweater was fairly easy to sew as you'd expect from a relatively simple knit garment. The instructions were detailed and seemed to be easy to follow - although I have to admit that I only really skimmed through them to check what order to sew everything in as I've made similar tops before so it's not an unfamiliar process for me.

The only slightly tricky part was gathering the bottom of the sleeve into the cuff - there's quite a lot of fabric there that has to fit into a relatively small space. It wasn't difficult exactly, just a bit fiddly.

I top stitched around the neckline, which wasn't mentioned in the instructions but I thought it was worth doing to stop the neckline seam allowance flipping up, which would have annoyed me. If I make the cropped Sheridan with the hem band again, I'd possibly use gathering stitches around the hem of the sweater body to gather it into the hem band rather than stretching the band to fit. Stretching the band worked OK this time, but I did have to stretch it quite a lot and I think with some fabrics you might end up stretching them out accidentally.

In terms of sizing, I cut a size 12 at the bust and blended out to a 14 at the waist and hips. Those are the sizes recommended for my measurements, and they worked out nicely. The sweater seems true to size - it's not a tight fitting sweater, but is fitted enough to give it a good shape (if that makes any sense?).

The fabric that I used is a gorgeous French terry from Loubodu Fabrics - it's such a pretty print and a lovely quality fabric. As I type, it's sold out unfortunately, but Loubodu have lots of other beauties and have 30% off this week if you fancy picking up a bargain.

I think the Sheridan sweater has been an excellent start to my sewing in 2020. It was a fun pattern to sew, there are lots more options that I could use in future projects, I love the fabric that I used and I know I'll wear this sweater a lot. What more could you want?! How's your sewing year started off?