Patchery

[Exploriment]

The library in my city has a maker space. Including a Janome embroidery machine.

So I started making myself patches.


Hard to tell from the photo because of the inch height difference, but same size as a SAK scale.

I really love Victorinox Swiss Army Knives.

How much do I love my Leatherman Wave? Enough to want to make a patch of it.

Lion I just did as a gift for a friend.

A 40 year obsession. The Golden Section.

Another, even older obsession.


I've been a Guust Flater (or Gaston Legaffe - depending on which side of the Flemish Walloon divide you came down on) fan for a very long time. It still has the capacity to make me ache from laughing. That deserves a patch!

One of the first things I made. A patch of the logo of the tattoo shop I work at.

Death's Head Moth.

Crummy first attempt on the right, lovely new one on the left. Let's call them, Roundel, RCAF, Embroidered, Mk. 1 & 2.

Better shot.

Triskehelions.

Gift for a Star Wars geek friend. (He has two stormtrooper outfits and is a member of the 501st Legion.)

Being a giant, I’ve always had an affinity for the Wookies.

You might be surmising I have a love for Lego. You would be correct.

This one's really special to me. 20 years ago my friend Andrew had a little club night, and the late great Scott Harder did the art work for the posters / cards. Made a patch of one element on the first one he did. Love how this turned out.

The logo for Carolyn, the apprentice at our shop.

Maze Skull.

 

[Exploriment]

I’ve always been into synths. Wanted to play around with variegated thread as well.

Another patch experimenting with variegated thread.

Technics turntables have been a part of my life for a long time.

Being a proud Amsterdammer, one of the patches I’ve wanted for a while is a crest of the city. I like it partly for how bold yet simple it is. It’s like heraldry and post modern graphic design had a night of drunken sex and this is its offspring.

And after making an Amsterdam crest, I decided I wanted a flag patch too.

Canoehead. Portage sign.

I’ve been using Macs for 30 years, and the early days (and the iconography) are still my fave.

Fitting since I spent 30 years in the print trade.

Bold and simple. The best approach to this medium.

Glad I can load the music I love from the thousands of records and CDs I own on to a hard disc. But cassettes will always occupy a fun place in my memories.

Double whammy annoy the hippies patches. Diemaco, later to become Colt Canada, makers of fine firearms.

My logo on a Kifaru Express.

First version on the right, and improved version on the left.

Hail Satin!


Really detest that plastic poppy. I’ve written to the Legion several times over the years, asking if they could make an embroidered one. Don’t seem interested. So I made one. I’ll still happily throw money in the box in November. Just didn’t want that plastic and pin thing any more.

Definitely archaic tech, but still have a soft spot for it.

Spiraloctotentacle.

 

[Exploriment]

Rendezvous on Champs Elysées
Leave Paris in the morning with T.E.E.
Trans Europe Express

By pressing down a special key
It makes a little patch for me.

Huge Kraftwerk fan.

My pal Jay’s funky, beaty dubby, recording project.

While my love of 4AD isn’t what it once was, they’re still a huge cultural touchstone for me. Early attempt above, recent attempt below.

Ampersands were always among my favourite characters to draw when I was more involved in doing lettering and type.

Viking raven flag.

Letting the world know how little I think of Che and his legions of clueless fans.



Skully ranger eyes, using a skull I drew 25 years ago for a typeface.

Skulls are cool and all, but spirals are a little more me.

ASF deserves a glow in the dark patch.

 

[snappingturtle]

Like the ouroboros and baphomet .

 

[dwardo]

Brilliant!

So its a machine you can load with an image and it prints, sorry sews away? Could do with something for our Karate club. Will have to look into it.

 

[CLEM]

Excellent work

 

[Muddypaws]

Some excellent work there! Good job.

 

[Exploriment]

Brilliant!

So its a machine you can load with an image and it prints, sorry sews away? Could do with something for our Karate club. Will have to look into it.

More or less, yes. All it does is embroider though. Some basic designs can be done through it, or more elaborate designs can be sent over from a computer.

Some things I’ve learned.

There is quite a learning curve to this - even with 30 years of graphic design experience under my belt. Lots of failures and screwups along the way.

A file for printing and a file for embroidery are two very different things. If I was to make stickers out of an image, it's a fairly straightforward proposition. Embroidery requires some planning and often rebuilding of the file. Trapping and bleeding needs to be accounted for. Whether something is grouped or joined is a factor.

Letting the computer convert a JPEG you find on the internet into an embroidery file is middling at best. I’ve always known auto-trace is crap, an this is more of the same. Depending on the image, it may work okay, but letting a computer algorithm make the decisions Is a very hit or miss proposition.

I redraw every image (if it isn’t a vector file already) as a vector file. I need to have full control of every element. I will often set up files with very bold, contrasting colours. Since I choose the thread colour, it doesn’t matter what they are on the screen. The screen on the embroidery machine isn’t so good, and if you have several very similar colours, it’s really tough to discern. this way, the bright green is the light grey, the pink is the medium gray, and the light blue is the dark grey. Even if it’s all going to be black, four different colours makes it easier to decide the sequence each element is done in, or control thread direction, etc..

One of the things that drive me nuts is how things spread out way beyond the line you drew. Tight spaces and things like counters in letters are especially problematic. I have to open everything up and enlarge things to work around it. I still haven’t figured out if there is an easy way in the embroidery software to fix that spread.

Bold will hold. Just like the old tattoo adage, finicky, hyper-detailed imagery doesn't translate so well to this medium. (Or at least with my knowledge level of the software I have up till this point anyway.) I find iconic images work best.

Use the material colour as a design element. I try to avoid filling large areas with stitches

420 denier packcloth works fine for me. I have lots of scraps from my various projects and it works well.

Avoid 3D satin. It creates prominently raised areas, but often at the cost of puckering the hell out of fabric.

I don’t have access to a Merrowing machine, I cheat by drawing in a line in Illustrator, cutting very carefully to the edge and the singeing it with a lighter, and then colouring it in with a marker or acrylic paint.

And the making of the patches is kind of fun. Sewing the Velcro on after is the sucky part.

 

[John Fenna]

By heck! - That is good work!
Our library hardly has books never mind an embroidery machine ... mind you - if it did I would never get out of the library at all....
I love your various skulls, the treskhelions the Leatherman logo etc - but the champ has to be the poppy - I too think the plastic poppy is pretty poor and I would happily wear that patch instead and give my money without taking up the plastic trash!
Fine work indeed - I am sure you could make a second income from producing Bushcrafty patches

 

[Stew]

They're awesome. Love the variety of stuff and some little trips down memory lane too.

 

[CLEM]

Still making your patches mate, any new designs or improvements?

 

[Exploriment]

Still making your patches mate, any new designs or improvements?

Yes!


Death's Head Moth. Three separate pieces. Velcro on the thorax, but none on the wings so they're loose. the antenna are a piece of cotton wrapped wire.


As a Hollander, it's a given I'd wear a poppy. But I was never a fan of the plastic and pin thing we can get here from the Legion. So I made my own.


Dan Dare. Four separate pieces.


International Rescue. The organization at the heart of Gerry Anderson's 1960's pupper animation show, Thunderbirds.


A ViewMaster viewer....

....that you can take the reel out of.


New Order's Blue Monday. The world's best selling 12".

The inner sleeve slides out of the outer sleeve.


An homage to not only my favourite type of cassettes, but even a specific mix tape my pal Jarkko gave to me.


Edelweiss.


Krampus. 5 separate pieces on 3 different fabrics.


Grinch. 4 separate pieces.


"Do you find something comical about my appearance when I am driving my automobile? Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun? Would you like it if I laughed at YOUR misfortune, huh?"
As a tall guy, I couldn't resist making this one.


TinTin and Snowy. 20 colours. The sweater, hair and fur have a different texture to them.


Suske & Wiske. Or Bob & Bobette. Depending on which side of the Flemish / Walloon divide you came down on. 17 colours.


Tom Poes.


Calvin & Hobbes. 14 colours.


Calvin & Hobbes dancing. 25 colours.


Spaceman Spiff. One of Calvin's fanciful alter-egos.

 

[Exploriment]

A Velcro backed Velcro logo on Velcro. How meta is that?




A friend's son is a huge Toronto Blue Jays fan. Any chump can go to the store and buy branded merchandise. He has something utterly unique.

One of the first patches I wanted to make when I had an opportunity to play with an embroidery machine was my tattoo shop's logo. I've learned a few things in the intervening years, so made a more elaborate one.


18 separate pieces. 14 colours on 4 separate fabrics. The fabric in the centre is glint tape. ±25 to 30 hours of hand sewing.

There's a secret pocket on the back.

Another patch I wanted to make as soon as I got access to an embroidery machine was this image my late friend Scott Harder. A few years on, my abilities and techniques have expanded, and a more leaborate version was in order.


11 separate pieces sewn together. The torso is refelctive material.

Secret pocket on the back.

I figure if 20 years after you die, people remember you so fondly they spend a whole bunch of time turning your artwork into other artwork to remember you by, you did something right in life.


Oh yeah!




Secret pocket sewn to the back.

And my favourite so far....


Based on an image by Joseph Ari Aloi in his wonderful Subconsciothesaurusnex.

23 pieces sewn together by hand.


Secret pocket on the back to store honey packets in.

 

[Jay131]

So jealous of your access to that machine!!!

 

[Exploriment]

So jealous of your access to that machine!!!

I am very blessed to have access to it. And the funny thing is, for me the end results are fun and all, but really it's the aspect of learning and trying new things and getting better at it, that's the really enjoyable part. I'm doing things that I couldn't even have fathomed 5 years ago.

 

[TeeDee]

Love the1st Poppy design.

Would definitely pay for something similar.

 

[Stew]

It looks addictive!

Do you take requests?

 

[Tengu]

I love patches too. My favourites go on clothes, and stuff I just found goes on my blanket.

I also have space patches on my denim waistcoat. All sewn on by hand so they keep their value.

Id love some custom ones.