Introduction
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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 general tips and technology for creating fabric badges. Embroidery itself is not covered here, e.g. read Stitch Era - creating embroidery patches or InkStitch - embroidery patch, that introduce the use of a specific embroidery software for creating patches.
Use of embroidery patches
There exist many uses of embroidery patches. The main one seem to be
Badges can be used to document an achievement in various educational and learning contexts. Adafruit sells a variety of maker skill patches. The following pictures were made by Adafruit and found in their Skill Badges album on Flickr (retrieved August 2019].
There seems to a lack of academic literature on embroidery skill badges. Even, the use of patch making in education is scarcely mentioned. Wolz et al. (2019) [1] [2] describe a computational making event where participants can create a patch. Daniel K. Schneider and collaborators organized various outreach events where participants create patches.
Sizes and forms
Sizes of patches can vary a lot, probably from 3cm to 15cm (1.2 to 6).
The typical size of a NASA mission patch seems to be 4 to 4.5 (10.16 - 11.43 cm). E.g. see the collection on Crewpatches.com which does indicate sizes. Its souvenir versions are 3 (7.62cm) but lack some details. Most versions of the well known NASA patch are about 3 (7.62cm). Recovery team patches are 5 (12.7cm), i.e. rather large.
Most patches are simply polygons, e.g. circles, rectangles or hexagrams. However, any form can be found as long as they are sewable.
The following google image search embroidery "skill badge" -army -military on March 5 2020 gave the following results:
Skills patches on Google image
. The picture shows that a majority uses a simple geometric. Some adopt the form of the main drawing, e.g. a dog or a logo. A few use a geometric form plus an appendice sticking out.
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.
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
One single layer can do if your stabilizer 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. However, for high-quality 10cm badges we do use a water-soluble heavy plastic.
Patch templates for cutting
For unknown reasons, we either do 46mm, 62mm, 82x62mm, 80mm or 100mm patches. Below are some SVG files (single) or multiple rows and columns for a standard industrial laser cutter like our trotec or a Glowforge(fr). Cutting lines are red and "hairline".
You also can use another laser cutter or a simple cutting plotter, but you may have to adjust the color and the width of the cutting line.
Download: click twice until you land on the SVG page, then from the browser, "save as".
Single patches:
A10 (26x37mm)
46mm
62mm
82x62mm
80mm
100mm
Series of 62mm patches. Our Trotec has a cutting area of 60 X 30cm, i.e. can handle 4 lines of patches and up to 9 columns.
62mm 2 columns, 4 lines
62mm 3 columns, 4 lines
62mm 5 columns, 4 lines
62mm 6 columns, 4 lines
62mm 9 columns, 4 lines
Make sure that cut lines are really 0.01mm and 256 RGB red, if you use a Trotec. Sometimes, Inkscape forgets the width (no idea why ....)
Trotec 45W settings for Gunold STEP:
Glowforge settings for Gunold STEP:
Creating the fabric patch
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.
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)
Not recommended, but fine for prototyping.
Source: How to make your own embroidered patches - cheap and easy DIY badges
Method 2 (pre-cut)
This is our favorite method and we used to create a few hundred different patches, in particular, during outreach events. These are documented in french, e.g. Broderie machine à la nuit de la science 2018 or Broderie machine au salon du livre 2018
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Cutting fabric for embroidery patches
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. Instead, use specialized fabrics for batches that look good, e.g. Twilly or Step from Gunold. The zigzag border stitch should come first in order to make sure that it is correctly placed along the borders.
Source: How to make an embroidered badge and Pre-Cut Applique Tutorial
Trouble
Method 3 (trim in place)
This method is interesting if you cannot pre-cut the shapes before (either because you don't have the machinery or because you cannot correctly compute the contours).
Inspiration: Trim in Place Applique Tutorial
Method 4 (trim in place reversed)
This method should 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).
Method 6
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, such as Heat N Bond and then glue it with a heat press or an iron. Gluing is done in two steps:
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 sticks 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
On sweaters
Pins
Glue
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.
These models should all or most stick to both fabrics and skin
Single sided 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
Tape not made for fabrics. There are removable double sided tapes that are not specifically made for fabrics.
One variant has assymetric tack. The removable sides has low or medium tack and the other side is strong
These probably do not work for textiles.
Removable glue not made for fabrics
'Removable adhesive gum, removable mounting, e.g.
Outreach activities
We describe various outreach activities that engage participants in creating badges in the sister wiki. for example:
Geneva book fair 2018:
Une partie des animateurs et animatrices
Un moment d'affluence forte. Plus de places assises
Affluence aussi autour des machines
Broderie avec la Brother PR1050X
Geneva Night of Science 2018:
Creating badges
Examples
Press articles and blog posts
Books
Bibliography
Wolz, U., Auschauer, M., & Mayr-Stalder, A. (2019). Programming embroidery with turtlestitch. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Studio, SIGGRAPH 2019 (pp. 1–2). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3306306.3328002
Wolz, U., Auschauer, M., & Mayr-Stalder, A. (2019). Code crafting with turtlestitch. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Studio, SIGGRAPH 2019 (pp. 1–2). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3306306.3328009
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