Add gorgeous botanical details to your sweater with this easy project

It's easy to customise you clothes with iron on  embroidery patterns. This project uses our 'Leaf Motif' pattern pack to add a botanical design to a sweater sleeve.

We'll will take you through the process step-by-step and show you how to embroider a sweater.

close up of hand embroidered sweater sleeve with leaves

Difficulty Level: Medium

Project Length: Quick

To stitch your own embroidered sweater sleeve you will need:

 

  • 'Leaf Motifs' embroidery iron on embroidery transfers
  • A 3" embroidery hoop
  • Thread in the following colours: 
    • Dark Green in DMC - XXX or Madeira - 1405
    • Mint Green in DMC - 368 or Madeira - 1310
    • Bright Green in DMC - 936 or Madeira - 1505
    • Pink in DMC - 223 or Madeira - 812
  • Iron on interfacing
  • A sweater
  • Iron, Needle, Scissors
equipment needed to learn how to embroider a sweater

Preparation


Cut a square of iron-on interfacing measuring roughly 12cm by 12cm. 

You will be stitching the right sleeve near the cuff on the opposite side to the seam. Turn your sweater inside out and iron the interfacing on to the back of this area.


The interfacing will make it easier to stitch on the stretchy fabric of the sweater.


Now turn your sweater right side out.


leaf iron on embroidery transfers cut out from the sheet

Now cut out the two leaf designs shown from your sheet of transfers and follow the pack instructions to iron the transfer on to the sleeve of your sweater. 


Iron your fabric first so it is warm when you apply the transfer. 


Position the transfers as shown in the photo, slightly over laid and with the leaves pointing down towards the cuff.

embroidery transfers ironed on to a sweater sleeve

Now mount the sweater sleeve in to you embroidery hoop, you will need to slide the smaller inner ring of the hoop inside the sleeve. 

Make sure the fabric is tight and the screw if secure. You will not fit the whole design in the hoop, so complete the part you can see and then move your hoop to complete the design.


If you are not sure how to set up your hoop you can find a full guide here or watch the video at the top of this page.


Now you are ready to start stitching!

embroidery hoop with leaf design from embroidery transfer

Stitching Notes

Step One:


To begin cut an arm's length of the dark green thread and separate 4 of the six strands by untwisting the thread (if you are new to embroidery and have not done this before you will find more instructions in our beginner's embroidery guide).

Thread your needle with the 4 strands and tie a knot in the other end.

Now begin to stitch the at base of the larger leafs stem you will be using split stitch to embroider the stem. You can see the steps for split stitch below (a-c) or click here for a full guide to split stitch. 

Continue stitching until you have covered the entire stem with split stitch.

Split Stitch:

illustration of split stitch

Step two:


Now stitch the leaves along the stem using leaf stitch.

This time you will be stitching with 3 strands of mint green thread thread

You can see exactly how to complete each leaf in the video below..

leaves on sweater sleeve being stitched with leaf stitch.

Leaf Stitch:

Step three:


Next cut an arm's length of the pink thread and separate 4 of the six strands by untwisting the thread.

Thread your needle with the 4 strands and tie a knot in the other end.

Now begin to stitch the at base of the larger leafs stem you will be using split stitch, as before, to embroider the other stem stem.  

Continue stitching until you have covered the entire stem with split stitch.

close up of leaves embroidered on a sweater sleeve

Step four:

 

The final set of leaves are stitched using lazy daisy stitch.

Use 3 strands of bright green thread and place a single lazy daisy stitch over each of the leaves.

You can see the steps for lazy daisy stitch below or click here for a full guide.


After placing each lazy daisy stitch make another simple stitch inside the leaf you have just created. This stitch will fill the leaf out a little bit and make sure none of the sweater shows through.

Continue until you have covered all of the leaves in this way.

close up of leave stitched using lazy daisy stitch.

Lazy Daisy Stitch:

illustration of split stitch

Step five:


Once you have completed all the stems and leaves remove the hoop and turn your sweater inside out. 


Tidy up any loose ends by trimming away the excess threads with scissors. 


Finally trim away and excess interfacing, as shown in the photo, and you are all done!

back of embroidery with interfacing
finished hand embroidered sweater

To care for hand embroidered clothes wash on a wool or delicate wash and do not tumble dry.


We hope you have enjoyed learning how to embroider a sweater and will use your new skills in future projects.

This project was made with:

Lisa Neal