Tuesday 16 February 2010

Make A Badge


What you’ll needWhite fabric (or any colour you would like). Use a light fabric if you want to write on it.
Scrap of fabric for decorating the badge (I have used red for hearts)
Scrap of batting (size depending on how many badges you’ll make). A thin, flat polyester batting works well as it will melt a bit and make the sandwich stiff.
Fusible web
Safety- or brooch pins (my safety pins are 1”)
Fabric marker or embroidery floss.


And what you’ll doMake a template by drawing the shape of your badge on a piece of paper. Make it as small or big as you like. The badge will be a few mm bigger on all sides when you cut it out. My oval-ish shape is 1 7/8” * 2 1/4”. Cut the template out.

Cover the piece of batting with fusible web on both sides.

Make a sandwich by fusing your chosen fabric to both sides of the batting. The sandwich will be a bit stiff, which is good. Check around the edges of your sandwich that it’s fused all the way around. If not, add more fusible or cut away the non-fused edges.
Use a pencil or fabric marker to draw as many badges as you’d like on the front side of the sandwich. Pencil lines can smear off a bit while quilting, so be careful.
Fuse webbing to the back of your decorative fabric, and cut out shapes. I cut my red fabric into small rectangles (ca 3/4” * 1 1/8”) and cut the hearts free hand.

Place the shapes inside the drawn ovals, and fuse them in place.
Free motion quilt the decorative shapes; I have sewn 2 rounds inside the hearts.

Free motion quilt, or use a regular foot, to sew along the drawn line. Both ways work fine. I have stitched 3 rounds around the oval with the lines going a bit this way and that. Make your shape as perfect or wobbly as you like.
Cut the threads, and cut out the badge 2-3 mm outside the stitching line.
Write your name with a fabric marker, or embroider it if you like.
I did not want to sew the pin in place, so I have used pieces of fusible web covered fabric to fasten the pin to the back of the badge.

Fuse web to a piece of (white) fabric

Measure the width of the pin (between the curly part and the closing part)
Cut pieces of the web covered fabric this width and ca 1” long.

Put your badges on your ironing board, backside up, and place the pin and little web covered fabric like this.
Using a hot iron, fuse the piece in place. Give it a quick press first; then fuse the top part
Flip the pin and press the bottom part. Use your fingers to press the fabric around the pin while it's still hot.
Done!

4 comments:

  1. Ah-h, cute AND easy! Love them!!

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  2. Thank you so much for sharing this tutorial 😊. Just made name tags for my boys, with little monsters instead of hearts, turned out really cute. They turned out stiff and sturdy, just like you said! Thanks!!

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