Any ordinary long-sleeved T-shirt or sweatshirt can be easily transformed with fabulous embroidered sleeves. Get our best hooping techniques, placement ideas, and more in this fashionable project.
Supplies & Materials:
Project Materials or Supplies
- Shirt or sweatshirt
- Medium-weight cutaway stabilizer
- Temporary spray adhesive
- Air-erase pen
- Seam ripper
The design used in this tutorial include: OR more materials & supplies
- C5681, Dream Border
- M5932, Flutterby Flourish Spray (Candlewicking)
Gather Materials:
Use a seam ripper to open the seam on the sleeve or your shirt or sweatshirt. Open it from the outer edge of the cuff all the way up to the shoulder.
A template is a printout of a design, and it's an excellent tool to plan where to stitch.
Print a template of the design from embroidery software. If you do not have an embroidery software, take a look at our helpful video on using dielines.
We also recommend Wilcom's Hatch software which comes in different levels depending on what you'd like to use the software for. Hatch Organizer works well to view your designs, print dielines and templates, change design colors, and create basic design layouts. (This is an affiliate link. We may earn commission on purchases made with this link.)
Center the template over the elbow area. Mark the center point and the horizontal and vertical axis lines.
Remove the template.
Spray a piece of medium weight cutaway stabilizer with temporary adhesive and smooth it on the back of the sleeve.
Start Embroidering:
Hoop the fabric and stabilizer together, aligning the marks on the hoop with the marks on the fabric.
Attach the hoop to the machine and load the design.
Move the hoop so that the needle is aligned with the center point on the fabric.
Embroider the design.
After embroidering, trim the excess stabilizer away.
Leave about 1/2" of excess stabilizer around the edges of the design.
Align the raw edges of the sleeve together, right sides together.
Pin in place, and sew a 1/4" seam along the raw edges. To finish the seam, you can also zigzag stitch or serge the raw edges.
Turn the sleeve right side out for wearing.
Personalize the embroidery to match your style, or give an embroidered shirt to friends and family.
Borders and sprays are particularly nice fits for sleeves, as they tend to be long and narrow. Change the colors to match your style, or your shirt or sweatshirt!
