Attach a Patch

Patches are a super cool way to show your interests, accomplishments, and personality! Over the past couple of years, I've acquired various patches here and there but had nowhere I really wanted to put them. Recently I got a new backpack and knew instantly that it would soon be covered in awesome patches!

Hopefully, this Instructable helps to allow all of your patches find a rightful home on a cool piece of clothing or accessory, rather than collecting dust on your bookshelf.

You'll need relatively few things to get going. Note that the patch I am sewing onto my backpack is not an iron-on patch. Some of these are pretty easy to attach, but unfortunately, my backpack definitely would melt under the heat of an iron (another important thing to take into consideration). With this in mind, I went the old fashioned route and stitched my patches on by hand using the following:

• Sewing Needle
  • I bought a nifty pack of 30 assorted hand sewing needles for around $5. Rest assured I'll never need to buy needles again!
• Thread
  • Buy a strong polyester thread, the one I am using is 100% polyester covered polyester
  • you'll also probably want a thread that matches the color of the outside of your patch. I used a very contrasting color for 2 reasons:
    • It's easy to see what I'm doing in pictures for an instructable
    • this was the only color thread that I had
• Patches!
  • Find a sweet patch, or make your own!
• Something to sew your patches onto
  • this could be a backpack, jacket, jeans, honestly whatever your heart desires! Get creative!

Cut a length of about 10' of thread and thread it through the eye of your needle. Bring your needle to approximately the center and double knot the very edges of your threads together so that it's nicely doubled up. Also, your needle will stay on during the whole sewing process.

Grab your patch and backpack (or whatever you're sewing it onto), and figure out where you want your patch to be! Keep in mind the addicting nature that is collecting patches, so you'll probably end up with more than one on if you and I are like-minded. Use some pins or tape to keep a couple edges in place so your patch doesn't go wonky.

Bring your needle through the back of the fabric and patch to get going. Pull all of the thread through until you hit you knots at the end, and poke your needle through just the backpack fabric so that your thread forms a loop around the edge of your patch.

Repeat this process, bringing your thread through the fabric and patch, around the edge of the patch and back through the fabric. Be sure to keep your thread tight without breaking it, and pull it all the way through so that there isn't any slack on either side of the patch.

Keep going all the way around your patch until you've come back to where you began, and pull your needle through the back of the fabric.

With your needle pulled through the back of the fabric, tie a double knot as close to the fabric as possible (I tend to use some of the loops of thread to help keep it close) and cut any excess thread off.

Take a step back and admire your handiwork! This was an easy and fun way to add some personality to a cool backpack and only took me half an hour or so while watching TV. Now put your patches to good use!

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, and thanks for reading!