top of page

Badges, pins and wearables.

patches and pins have been small ways fans of properties can show their love and customise items they own to add a fun touch to their everyday items. patches became popular in the 70s being added to leather and denim jackets. Pins can come in 3 varieties. acrylic. buttons and enamel. enamel pins are typically moulded metal and filled with paint. acrylic pins are usually sheets of a acrylic printed with a design and cut to that of the design. finally button pins are almost always round and have a piece of printed pieces of artwork and topped with a plastic sheet to protect the work.

Patches are typically bought in sets and are the iron on variety; meaning you need nothing more than an iron to be able to use them. I wanted to expriment with different textures and looks when it came to my patches. I also wanted to base mine upon a circus themed set. This would consist of cotton candy, popcorn, a hat, balloons, a heart and some kind of animal.

After some small sketches, I decided I wanted to make my popcorn and cotton candy more textured by adding needlefelt. Needle felting was something new to me and I found that special needles with tiny barbs throughout so the fibres don't slip out the fabric. often patches are made out of a canvas fabric to help guide where you will place your embroidery however I wanted my patches to have a childish appeal and thus used felt. this also helped the felting bond to the base however it was slightly flimsy due to how many times the needle was poked in and out the material so in the future a stronger more durable felt should be used.

For some of my patches I wanted to add metallic thread to draw the eye to the patches. after they were completed they were cut out of the hoop and bondaweb is attached to the back. I then got a jacket and ironed on to the jacket. I also stitched them around the edges for extra support.

Ive been doing embroidery for many years and always do a test to see if using short or long stitches would look better. I like the look of the cotton candys cone as it looks like it has a lot of texture however the popcorn box looks fuller with a better colour distribution overall.

I booked the screen printing room and got my design printed onto acetate which is a piece of clear plastic which is then exposed on a screen which then allows the ink to pass through the exposed part.

For my shirt I came up with 2 designs; one of Nio-mee and the other of Odette; I decided to go with the Nio-mee design as converting the Odette design to black and white didn't bring strong enough of either extremes and clowns are less aesthetically appealing to a modern audience. Mermaid has been a huge theme in 2017-2018 and mermaid merchandise is often found in large chain stores meaning it must be selling well for all the stores to compete with selling the merchandise.

After the screen exposed it is then taped around the edges and so the ink doesn't leak. Then the ink is mixed with a textile medium for fabric prints and is placed on one side of the screen. a piece of card is placed between the shirt and then the shirt is placed underneath the screen and the ink is squeegeed over the print a few times at a 45 degree angle and is passed over around 5 times with medium pressure. Finally the screen is lifted while holding down the printed piece and  is then taken to dry for a few hours.

After the piece has dried it is then ironed and tried. I am very happy with my pieces. I feel like my prints came out very clean and crisp. I would have liked to print on some paper washed with watercolour or something more interesting to use as a poster print which would be great to sell. I also think it would be fun to use coloured ink for my prints in future to make the design more eye catching to children which would increase sales.

bottom of page