DIY: EMBROIDERED SLOGAN TEE

I've been on the hunt for a cool slogan tee in red and white since forever (or at least since March). But I am really picky when it comes to the slogans. Why would you wear a t-shirt that says "Hate at first sight"?! By the way, I haven't just invented this phrase, I actually saw it while shopping a few months back and started wondering who would wear such a statement on a tee. When I discovered the beautiful (and eyewatering expensive) sweaters that Lingua Franca creates, I was immediately inspired to DIY my own. In case you're not familiar with the brand: Lingua Franca take fine cashmere sweaters and hand-embroider slogans on them in a handwriting style - and we all know how much I love embroideries. Since I don't have any spare fine knit sweaters, I decided to test drive my idea on a white tee (which I have loads of!). I absolutely love how the embroidery in my own handwriting turned out - and I am sure I will get lots of use out of it under knit cardigans in the winter.

 WHAT YOU NEED: 

• simple crew neck t-shirt
• red thread (or any other color of your choice)
• needle (choose a needle as thin as possible because the t-shirt is going to be damaged when the needle is too thick) 
• template for the slogan (I just wrote it myself on some paper)

1. Create a template for the slogan. I simply wrote it myself, but you can also print one out in the font you desire. Place it on your tee and decide where you want the slogan to be. I like to pin the template on to the t-shirt with some needles and then try it on to see how the placement of the slogan works out.
 2. Once you've found a place for the slogan, it's time to trace the slogan on the tee in order to make it as easy as possible to stitch over it. For this, I placed the template underneath the front layer of the t-shirt. The slogan shines through the t-shirt, so just trace it on the tee with either a pencil or sewing pencil.
3. Because the t-shirt fabric is quite thin and delicate, I highly recommend you to split the thread in the middle so you only use three threads for the stitching. Otherwise, you will create huge holes in the t-shirt which is not cool. Start by securing the thread at the beginning of one word. I use a normal backstitch (I found a really good tutorial here). Follow the outline of the writing until you finished the slogan. To secure the thread, make a knot after you finish with the length of the thread.


This is such an easy DIY in my opinion and the handwriting looks great on a simple white tee, don't you think?