Iron Craft ’15 Challenge #10 – Embroidery Embellished Tunic

For this Iron Craft challenge we had to make something with the letter “E” as our inspiration. I was getting ready to head out on vacation for most of the challenge period, so I needed something I could whip out quickly. Luckily, that answer was hanging right in my closet, a plain black tunic from Old Navy that I thought could stand a little embellishing.

Wearing my “new” tunic at the Painted Desert on vacation.

My secret santa this passed Christmas gave me the book Scandinavian Stitch Craft, since time was short, I chose a simple flower pattern from it. I used dressmakers tracing paper to draw the design on the shirt on once side of the slit in the yoke.

Then I debated color. I originally though I wanted to go bright red, but when I was looking at my floss colors with the shirt I thought a dark grey with just a pop of red might be striking. I really like how it is almost tone on tone.

The stitching went quickly, this was done in one afternoon. I used stem stitch for the stem, split stitch for the leaves and satin stitch for the flower, all just using two strand of floss. Two French knots really gave the flowers a finished look.

I was going to do a mirror image of the flowers on the other side of the slit, but decided I liked it on one side better. Matt said one side make it look a little more modern and a little less peasant. I think that little bit of embroidery adds a lot to the shirt. It’ll probably be on high rotation all summer.

I really like taking something inexpensive and basic and personalizing it. What about you, have you taken anything for a store and turned it into your own lately?