My First Offering - An Embroidery

My First Offering - An Embroidery

This is the jeans jacket I hand embroidered for the Sleep Token concert back in December 2024.

The project took me about 6 months to complete, with a longer break in between.

It was quite a process, which I will describe below, if anyone is interested in that. If there are still questions, don't hesitate to reach out and I will answer to the best of my abilities, as I am by no means a professional :D

So. It started out as a little thought. I have that old jeans jacket collecting dust in my closet, and I want to upgrade that. Said, done.

I get a cheap pack of embroidery needles, even cheaper embroidery floss (which I regretted at one point, but I will explain that later on) and an old embroidery frame from my mother-in-law.

And then it was go time.

I started tracing the big logo in the middle. Seeing as I have absolutely no talent in drawing, I'm very glad that tracing on a tablet is an option :)

Printing that out, I taped the shape to the middle of the back piece and drew along the rim with a heaterasable pen. You can get that at any store that sells those pens with a rubber tip to erase the ink :D

After that, I set out to embroider the entire logo. It is made entirely with a satin stitch.

If there is any interest, I can explain different stitches in a seperate post :)

That took about 2-3 weeks to finish, as I work full-time, and weekends sometimes as well. Also, let's be real, I was so very slow ! But when I finished, I was so proud of myself, as it was my very first piece.

But ever the over achiever, I let it sit for a few days, before I thought "I can do more."

So, back to planning.

I sampled a lot of patterns and decided for this. It looked cool, but I wasn't sure I would complete it in time.

However, my mom did a lot of things wrong, but she didn't raise a quitter, so I got my shit together and started this enourmous project.

I ordered transfer paper online and printed everything out on there. It sticks to the material, and you can embroider on it and wash it off when you are finished.

I started with the more simple patterns, as the glyphs or the vines. Looked pretty solid, and I was extremely satisfied with my work, as well as my gained skill and haste.

Now that was the problem.

It looked so pretty at this point to me, that I was afraid of messing it up, so I fell into a bad headspace and stopped working on it for at least 8 weeks.

By now, it was end of July, so time was running out fast, considering the biggest part, the mirrored roses, still had to be done.

I got my shit back together thanks to my bestie, and started a trail run for colour scheme.

I was so happy that it looked exaktly like I imagined, and got motivation from that.

ADHD hyperfocus ON !

So I embroidered...

And embroidered (with some cat cuddles)..

And I was finally done !!

Only to realise that I have to do it ALL again on the other side !

I was about to cry, because just one single double coloured rose head took about 5-6 hours to make.

One entire rose side took me 4 weeks to finish D:

So, in the warm summer evenings, I sat on the balcony and got to work.

At least I knew what to do now and didn't have to think about that anymore.

No think, just stitch.

And one month later, I was actually finished !!

By the end of September I was done, thankfully much earlier than anticipated.

Now I simply had to wash off the water dissolvable transfer paper.

I did handwash it, but there was some glue residue left, so I had to bite the bullet and put it in the washer.

Those thirty-something minutes were terror. I was afraid the stitches won't hold, or the residue won't come off.

But thankfully, it was alright, and I let it dry out in the sun.

Now I wear that jacket whenever I can !! I love it so much.

I got quite a few compliments, especially at the London gig.

But the best one was when I went shopping for more high quality floss in a local craft store, and older lady complimented the jacket, and told me she was happy that the youth keeps things like that alive.

So, I made it a permanent hobby and already started another project on here that I will want to update regularly.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to ask away :D

Ps.: If you read this far, maybe leave a humble like or reblog ? <3

Thank you; A. \(^o^)/