Finally done. The planning, prepping, trialling and – finally – sewing, of this project has taken some time. Totally worth it though – I’m really chuffed with how this Archer shirt by Grainline Studio turned out.
After trying embroidery for the first time about a month ago, I’ve been thinking about how to use it on clothing. I knew it had the potential to look pretty horrific, so I did a lot of research (i.e. googling) to find inspiration. I had a vague idea that I wanted to embroider something tattoo style (e.g. a pin-up on the sleeve), but after typing ‘minimalist tattoos’ into the search engine I changed direction. I found loads of beautiful geometric shapes – and finally settled on this bad boy (thought it was appropriate to my erm.. heritage?).
As the shape was made up of only straight lines, I simply traced the pattern onto the fabric using yellow carbon paper and a tracing wheel. I decided I wanted quite a large shape on the back of the shirt.
I made my first Archer (to which the cuff below belongs to) a few months ago, without any adjustments at all. It was a pretty good fit, but this time I decided to shorten the sleeves by about 4cm, and also slim the sleeves by making them two sizes smaller.
And as the reindeer was to go on the back, I decided to remove the pleat, and therefore had to make adjustments to the armhole.
For the embroidery, I decided to use different colours to create a kind of graded/colour block look. Needless to say, there was a lof of measuring and testing beforehand, and I went through several iterations of the embroidery. I started out putting a different design on the sleeves and the pocket, but finally decided to only go for one big statement pattern on the back.
And here is the result!
I went to the Cloth House and spent what I think is a fortune on buttons (£7.50), but I’m glad I did. I chose simple white buttons for the button band, but decided to go for peach/pink buttons for the cuffs and the top of the buttons band to mix it up a bit.
So there we go! Not sure what’s next on my sewing table. Potentially a Merchant and Mills Dress Shirt…..
Project summary:
- Pattern: Grainline Archer shirt (already in my pattern folder)
- Fabric: Quite a heavy, soft white cotton fabric from Rolls and Rems (£17.5)
- Buttons: From Cloth House (£7.5)
- Embroidery thread: Vintage linen thread from mums stash (£0)
Total cost of project: Approx £26 (including white sewing thread, needle etc)
Total time spent: 18-20 hours (includes many hours trialling embroidery patterns)
Beautiful! The embroidered reindeer is a fantastic detail. And you were right to splash out on the buttons – this shirt looks great! :)
Thanks Sue! Just terrified of wearing it and spilling something on it!
this is just amazin