Embroidery patch
Introduction
Cloth patches (also known as fabric badges, cloth badges, embroidered patches, sleeve patches, uniform patches etc.) are small pieces of embroidered fabric that can be attached on cloth in various ways.
According to Wikipedia, “an embroidered patch, also known as a cloth badge, is a piece of embroidery which is created by using a fabric backing and thread. The art of making embroidered patches is an old tradition and was originally done by hand. High-speed, computerized machines have led to mass production.”
This page will include some tips and technology for creating fabric badges. Embroidery itself is not covered here, e.g. read the Stitch Era tutorials that introduce the use of a specific embroidery software.
Fabrics and stabilizers for patches
Choice of good and not so good fabrics
We recommend buying specialized fabrics for patch creation (in french: tissu pour écussons). So far, we identified three types of tissue:
1) Twill for badges is a good option if you plan to stitch larger badges with or without a background. Twill is a tightly cross-woven fabric. It has two different sides, one smoother than the other. You can embroider on either side, according to your taste.
- E.g. Twilly from Gunold. This tissue also can be laser cut. While we do not endorse brands here (since we don't have the time to do comparisons) we have to recommend this, because we were unable to find a suitable fabrics by ourselves (thanx Lydie).
2) Structured fabric that look like lock-stitch embroidery allow thread and time. E.g. STEP from Gunold. This fabric is a bit expensive, but saves a lot of time and thread. Also, prices on the market vary widely. e.g. in France 10 33x29 samples cost 55 Euros. If you need a single color then you may have to buy larger pieces.
3) Appropriate felt is also a good option. But make sure that it is fairly thick (e.g. 1.5mm), non-elastic (including when it is wet) and that it has a fairly smooth surface. Elastic felt leads to poor results, and really bad ones if you use a solvable stabilizer.
Otherwise, you can use tighly woven napkins, jeans, etc. but the result will not be as good since there will be stronger pull/push effects.
Stabilizers
As explained later, the fabric for the patch is usually not hooped but just put on top of a hooped stabilizer. Also recall, the stabilizer should not be "visible" around the edges. There are therefore two solutions
- Tear-away stabilizer
- Water-solvable satbilizer
On single layer can do if your fabric is thick and stable, otherwise, use 2 or more layers if the stabilizer is thin.
We prefer using a self adhesive tear-away stabilizer that is hooped upside down. This way one can just put the fabric on top. After removing the patch, one then can "glue" a piece of the same stabilizer on top and restart, e.g. no re-hooping is needed.
Creating the fabric badge
A fabric patch is usually round but other forms exist. Size can vary from small (e.g. these nerd merit badges) to large, e.g. mission badges for astronauts.
Creating a fabric badge (also called embroidered patch) is not very easy and there exist several methods. Most methods require at some point the following stitch elements.
- A placement stitch outside of the border of your badge will help you positioning a precut patch before you embroider the rest
- A tackdown stitch inside the design borders will fix the patch in place
- A Cut Line inside a tiny bit in the design borders will fix the patch in place and allow you to cut of the tissue when you use the "cut in place" method explained below.
- A heavy Cover Stitch, i.e. a 3.0 to 3.5mm wide and 6 per mm dense zig-zag, is usually used to stitch a border. This is also called merrowing.
In addition to specific stitching elements you should choose a heavy and stable fabric (see above). We recommend using specialized tissue.
Creating badges uses similar tricks as creating appliqués and as with the former you could either use "pre-cut" or "trim-in-place" strategies. Therefore, you also can consult tutorials for creating these. Read our Stitch Era tutorial featuring the "trim in place" and "pre-cut" methods.
Below, we summarize several methods for creating patches.
Method 1 (one shot)
- Hoop a solid fabric using any kind of stabilizer.
- Stitch the design and remove it from the hoop
- Iron the badge if necessary
- Optional: Glue a iron-on adhesive (stabilizer) to the bottom. This will make it more stable but only can be used if the badge was fully stitched inside.
- Add some seam sealant (water-proof glue for textiles like Fray Check (Amazon US) or Prym fray check (Amazon fr)") to the borders (to prevent accidents when you cut). In french: colle anti-effilochage.
- Cut out the design
Source: How to make your own embroidered patches - cheap and easy DIY badges
Method 2 (pre-cut)
- Cut out some fabric of the size of the badge. You can print out a paper version of the design and use it as model. We use our Trotec Speedy 100R 50Mw laser cutter with settings: power=22, speed=1.9 and Hz=1000.
- Hoop a water soluble stabilizer or a tear away one (either a very strong one or use 2 layers)
- Stitch the placement stitch (same as appliqué)
- Remove the hoop
- Glue the fabric within the placement line with a temporary glue spray
- Put the hoop back
- Stitch an optional tackdown stitch followed by a the zig-zag border first.
- Then stitch the rest of the embroidery.
It is probably best not to stitch a background color. Otherwise you will have to manage a pull/push effect and also make sure that the overlap between border and background looks good. The zigzag stitch should come first in order to make sure that it is correctly placed along the borders. Instead, use specialized fabrics for batches that look good, e.g. Twilly or Step from Gunold.
Source: How to make an embroidered badge and Pre-Cut Applique Tutorial
Trouble
- If the border does not stitch well, then change the size of the border zigzag
- Make sure that your needle is straight. Torn needles will create non-conformant geometry !
Method 3 (trim in place)
- Hoop some heavy stabilizer (water soluble)
- Glue a heavy fabric on top
- Stitch a tackdown stitch and and a cutout stitch. The former is a few mm inside and the latter about 0.5mm inside the top/bottom borders and almost on the left/right borders. Read Stitch Era - creating embroidery patches for an example. It is fairly difficult to find the right distances in a first try.
- Remove the hoop
- Cut out the fabric along the cutout stitch
- Put back the hoop
- Stitch the rest (background if present, then probably the border zig-zag next). The exact order depends on what you want to optimize ....
Inspiration: Trim in Place Applique Tutorial
Method 4 (trim in place reversed)
- Similar as above, but use an opposite order of design - border stitching
- Hoop some heavy stabilizer (water soluble or tear away)
- Glue a heavy fabric on top
- Stitch a tackdown and a cutout stitch
- Stitch the design (but not the border)
- Remove the hoop== Attaching the patch ==
The easiest solution is to use a hot melt film.
The next easiest solution is use a permanent glue for textiles, e.g. UHU Textil, Super Fabric, Patex Made at home Textil-tissu, Patch Attach. Before you buy any of these, make sure to read online reviews. Some glues only stick on some textiles !!
Gluing is not good enough for repetitive washing. You also should stitch the border if you plan to wash often. In other words, hot melt film or glue should be enough for fixing a patch on a down jacket, but not for a shirt.
Otherwise, just sew...
A final solution that works well for sweaters is to create a removable patch using one sided velcro.
- Cut out the fabric along the cutout stitch
- Put back the hoop
- Stitch a heavy zig-zag border on top.
This method may not work too well since the badge could be distorted. Make sure to add appropriate pull compensation. See also the next method.
Method 5 (trim and rehoop)
This method is a sort of combination between the trim-in-place (Design is first stitched then cut along a cut line) and the cut-out method (patches are put on washable or tear-away stabilizer before stitching the border).
- Use a strong cutaway stabilizer and/or specialized stable fabric. You could stitch several copies at the same time
- Stitch a cut-out line first.
- Stitch the design next (but not the border)
- Remove the fabric and cut out the patch(es) along the cut-out line
- Hoop a washable or self-adhesive stabilizer
- Stitch cut-out lines for placement.
- Position the cut-out patches inside the cut-out line. Glue it if you use a washable stabilizer.
- Stitch the border.
Method 6
- Same as one of the above method, but use an overlocking machine to create the border zigzag stitch.
An overlock machine, (overlocking or merrowing) wraps a thread around a fabric and also can cut.
Attaching the patch to the cloth
The easiest solution is to use a hot melt film.
The next easiest solution is use a permanent glue for textiles, e.g. UHU Textil, Super Fabric, Patex Made at home Textil-tissu, Patch Attach. Before you buy any of these, make sure to read online reviews. Some glues only stick on some textiles !!
Gluing is not good enough for repetitive washing. You also should stitch the border if you plan to wash often. In other words, hot melt film or glue should be enough for fixing a patch on a down jacket, but not for a shirt.
Otherwise, just sew...
A final solution that works well for sweaters is to create a removable patch using just one side of a velcro. See the next section for an exploration of removable technology.
Technology for removable adhesion
So, far we did not find a perfect solution for badges that could stick to ordinary cloth and then be removed. The best solution is probably using double-sided removable fabric to fabric/skin tape (used to hold cloth in place) and the second best is removable hemming. Velco works very well on fabrics like knitted sweaters.
All of these should be tested with the fabrics to be used on in order to avoid damage.
Velcro pads
On any fabric
- Sew Velcro pads on the fabrics (works well, but is intrusive).
- An easier to use variant - Sticky Back for Fabrics - simply glues (no sewing needed). However, these will not survive repetitive washing. Also, the glue may not work with certain fabrics.
- Glue Poster hanging strips. These are a kind of velcro strips that glue to both the fabric and the patch. E.g. 3M Poster Hanging Strips
On sweaters
- Velcro pads like nerd merit badges stick well to a pullover. It comes with a small velcro dot to be put on the fabric, but the badge does stick without, but could maybe damage a delicate sweater.
Pins
- Use a simple safety pin
- Get a safety pin that can be glued to the badge
Glue
- Scotch Removable Restickable Glue Stick (formerly "post-it glue stick")
- There is a also some 3M spray (forgot it's name)
Using a non permanent glue (spray), but has to be tested for residuals on fabrics.
Double coated tape
The best solution is probably take some non-permanent tape sold under the name of Wardrobe solutions by Scotch.
Removable double coated fabric tape, e.g.
- Scotch Essentials Wardrobe Tape Strips
- Scotch Essentials Accessory tape circles
- Braza Double Sided Flash Tape
- Adribou Fashion Tape (Boydy and clothing tape)
These models should all or most stick to both fabrics and skin
Single sided fabric tape
- Scotch™ Removable Fabric Tape
This must be glued on the none sticky side to the fabric. Probably a bad solution since the sticky glue will wear out after a while.
Removable hem tapes / removable hemming tapes
- Gaudy Guru Adjustable Two Side Fabric Hem Tapes for Clothes
- Scotch Essentials Adjustable Hem Tape
- Hollywood Fashion Secrets Temporary Hem Tape
Tape not made for fabrics. There are removable double sided tapes that are not specifically made for fabrics.
- Scotch® Double Sided Removable Scrapbooking Tape
- Elmer E4005 CraftBond Double Sided Scrapbooking Tape
- 3M 238 Removable Double Sided Tape
- Scotch® Removable Mounting Squares
One variant has assymetric tack. The removable sides has low or medium tack and the other side is strong
- 3M 9425 Removable Repositionable Tape
- 3M Scotch 9415PC Removable Repositionable Tape
These probably do not work for textiles.
Removable glue not made for fabrics
'Removable adhesive gum, removable mounting, e.g.
- Scotch Removable Mounting
- Glue Dots
- Elmers reusable adhesive
- Mounting putty
Permanent
Fixing a badge permanently is easy, either by (1) sewing it on to the cloths or (2) by using some "badge magic" double-sided tape, hemming tape, glue, tape to iron on, etc.
Links
Creating badges
- Patch it up (Tutorial at urban threads)
- How to make an embroidered badge (echidnasewing, 2017)
- Trim in Place Applique Tutorial
- Pre-Cut Applique Tutorial
- Meet the chevron (part 1), part 2 and part 3