With a fever dream of an idea and a hundred tiny spools of thread left over from my older sister’s childhood attempts, I dove into my first embroidery project with next to zero experience. I could already hand sew at a basic level, meaning a straight stitch and an overcast stitch I used to roughly fix holes in my clothes, but sewing for the purpose of it being seen was completely new to me. I was pleased to find it’s really not that hard.
I began my project on a blank black hoodie. I was mostly doing letters, and to get them right I sketched them out on sticky, water-soluble paper specifically meant for embroidery. With the paper stuck to the hoodie, I simply threaded the needle and began to sew. It really was as easy as that. For the back, made of chunky colorful letters, I had a rough idea of what colors I wanted to put on the same letter and which letter to put them on, but I had no problems tweaking it slightly as I went on [fun fact: I actually picked some of the colors to match colorful pants I owned. I was constantly annoyed with trying to find colors to go with the pants, and I wanted a piece I could wear with all of them. Hence, the red/brown and pink/purple “S” and “N”]. For those letters, I used a satin stitch (watched a YouTube video) and then I wove in a few perpendicular stitches to secure the satin stitching into place. All the other lettering was thin, so I used a technique called “this will probably work” and just sewed as I saw fit. I can read it, and other people can read it, so it did in fact work. Finally, I bought an iron-on patch, ironed it on, and I was done!
I am immensely proud of my work, and it’s a great conversation point. In the future, I’d spend a little more time making sure the rows of words on the sleeve would all line up because they are super crooked and look a little funky. I would also do a better job maintaining the inside of the hoodie after each color because with this one when I put it on, I have to swim through like a thousand threads. I’d also like to note that embroidering takes forever, and is especially difficult if you have sweaty hands. Overall though, this is one of the greatest hobbies I’ve picked up. It’s easy, can be pretty inexpensive, and adds a unique flourish to clothing or bags or whatever else can handle being punctured by a needle. I absolutely plan on making something else soon as embroidery has quickly become one of my favorite creative pastimes!
