Have you noticed the embroidered slogan sweater trend taking off the past couple of months? These sweaters, popularized by Lingua Franca, have been popping up everywhere on tv hosts and magazine covers. While beautifully made, some of these sweaters cost upwards of $400, out of reach for many of our budgets. I decided to make my own, using more affordable materials. The finished DIY sweater pictured above cost me around $15.
This is a great project to make for all ages and genders and is such a fun way to express yourself. Inside jokes, favorite movie quotes, whatever you want, are all perfect for embroidering.
DIY embroidered slogan sweater:
Materials:
- Fine knit top/ t-shirt/ sweatshirt – mine is from Old Navy
- Embroidery needle/ floss/ hoop – All from Sublime Stitching (tho I switched out the wood hoop for a plastic one I had bc I ended up needing a larger size)
- Sulky sticky fabric solvy
- Cut away stabilizer
Once you have decided on a slogan for your shirt, you will need to either handwrite or print it onto a sheet of the Solvy. Solvy is this miracle product which you can write/ print on, embroider over, and then dissolve away with warm water. It is, along with steeking, the most magical process I have ever encountered.
If you have good handwriting, you can write your slogan directly onto the sheet of Solvy with a ballpoint pen. Since my handwriting is not the best, I looked for the most readable handwriting font I could find. I settled on Primaria Regular and printed out my slogan (disgruntled pelican, for my fellow Schitt’s Creek fans) in different font sizes on regular paper and held it up to my chest to find the right size lettering. Once it was the right size, I printed it on the Solvy, removed the backing, and stuck it adhesive side down:
Then I attached my cutaway stabilizer to the back of the sweater and my hoop:
Funny story about the stabilizer – I decided to do this project very spur of the moment. I jumped in the car to go buy a couple shirts and stabilizer, get to Michael’s. and all the stabilizer is sold out. Instead of ordering some online and having to wait a few days, I decided to look around the store to see if there was a decent substitution. Luckily there was! For whatever reason, near the blank tshirts, there were baby tutus made of the softest tulle. I bought one, cut off a square of tulle, and it worked great!
Anyway, back to the hoop: Using Sublime floss in 504 Amazonite, I stitched right over the words printed on the Solvy. Look how neat it makes your lettering!
I did chain stitch for everything and then french knots for the dots on the i’s.
Once you’ve stitched everything, remove the hoop. On woven fabrics, I usually pull back the solvy and trim off the excess before washing it. It was pretty stuck to this sweater, so I just left it alone and it took longer to rinse off.
Since the care instructions on the sweater call for cold water wash, I tried to keep the water just warm but not hot. If you use hot water, it falls off right away, but if you use warm, it takes a little effort. Alternating the regular tap and the sprayer, it took a few minutes to get everything rinsed and clean. *******IMPORTANT******** if you’re embroidering a wool sweater, do NOT use the sprayer to try and dissolve the solvy because it will felt the wool and you definitely don’t want that. Just soak it in the water for a little while.
Then I rolled up the sweater in a towel, stepped on it to get excess water out, and then dried it flat outside.
I love how this turned out. The turquoise on acid yellow color combination is so fun and eye catching. I can’t wait to wear my new sweater!
Have you tried making an embroidered slogan sweater? Tell us about it in the comments!
