Machine Embroidered Sweatshirt

My daughter had seen one of the famous Fixer Upper hosts wearing a sweatshirt with the words, “Book Club” screen printed onto the front of the garment. Being an avid reader, she immediately declared her desire to have a shirt like this for Christmas. After looking up the cost for said sweatshirt, I decided to make one of my own using my trusty embroidery machine. Carefully reviewing the garment, I quickly found a few heather colored sweatshirts at the discount store and identified a font that would work the the “Book Club” design. I didn’t care for the font used in the original design so I settled on a text style that looked just like one found when reading a book; a contemporary spin on Times New Roman. Here are the steps I used to embroider font or text onto the front of a basic medium-weight sweatshirt.

Use a temporary spray adhesive (found in the sewing department) to adhere a piece of medium weight stabilizer to the wrong side of the fabric. Make sure the stabilizer is large enough to cover and extend beyond the outside of your embroidery hoop.

Crease the sweatshirt to find it’s center and position the embroidery hoop paying close attention to desired design placement.

Audition various threads to decide which will work best for your design. I used a heavy weight black thread for the book style font.

After you have created your design (I use my laptop), send the design to your sewing machine and begin sewing.

I usually stay with the machine for a simple design and trim threads when possible.

When the machine has completed the design, remove hoop from the embroidery arm and trim any threads carefully.

Remove hoop and turn the garment inside out to sparingly trim threads from the back of the design. I usually leave connecting threads intact to further secure the design. Trim stabilizer, if needed.

With a thick pressing cloth or towel, carefully iron the crease out of the center front area.

Fold the sweatshirt neatly and get it ready for gift giving…

Have fun creating other “book related” designs…