I’m so happy to finally be sharing this make with you all! This is a special project that I’ve had in mind since Cameron came out in 2022. Sam has always been into western-style button up shirts so naturally I wanted to try hacking the Cameron Button Up to make an embroidered shirt for him. Here is how I did it!
I knew I wanted to add embroidery to the shoulders of this Cameron. When Sam and I first met, he had a white button up with pearl buttons and roses embroidered on the shoulders. My goal was to recreate the vibe of that shirt in black. Here we are at the young age of 22 and 23!
To make areas for the embroidery, I added pointed shoulder yoke details. Once the embroidery was complete, I simply cut out pointed shoulder pieces to match the existing shoulders. I turned under the bottom edges and topstitched them to the shirt fronts. It was really easy! You could do a similar method to make any shape of yoke you wanted!
I did not make any other changes to the pattern, but I would like to experiment with a pointed back yoke in the future—would you be interested in that tutorial? Let me know in the comments!
Now, let’s talk about the embroidery. I started with two pieces of the same block fabric I was using for the shirt. They are big enough to fit my embroidery hoop. I interfaced them both with my usual black fusible interfacing.
I googled "line art roses and vines" and "embroidery inspiration" until I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I sketched it out using felt markers to have a reference, but I did not draw it out on the fabric. I prefer to just wing it and see where the embroidery takes me, but that is just a personal preference!
Doing the actual embroidery was so fun and didn’t take too long. After my last embroidery project, everything seems faster. This was just a few flowers and leaves and vines—no problem! I like that I can take embroidery with me and work on it while I am traveling.
I decided to make the shoulders sisters, not twins. The embroidery is different on each side and I love that about it. You can see that my first side is a bit messier and my second side is a bit neater. That happens when I do hand stitching . . . I get better as I go along.
The last change I made for this shirt was to use pearl snaps! I have never installed these before but it was really straightforward. I love how the red pops and brings out the embroidery. I think it looks especially good buttoned up all the way because I am not that into the silver backside of the snaps. It’s a small detail that I overlooked. Oftentimes, this style of shirt would have a regular button for the collar stand, not a snap.
Thanks for checking out this project!
