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Kids Sugar Skull Patch Jacket Embroidery Project

By Pat Williams on December 14, 2017

PROJECT DETAILS

SKILL LEVEL

Some Experience

TIME REQUIRED

05:30

Description

Applique designs are turned into sew-on patches to create this darling sugar skull jacket.

Project Preview Video

Materials

For each patch:

4” x 4” square of 100% cotton white twill

4” x 4” square of Pellon Craft Fuse 809® to stiffen the twill

4” x 4” square of Heat N Bond Lite to create sew on patches

4” x 4” square of Turquoise 100% cotton fabric for the heart patch

3” x 3” square of Lime Green 100% cotton fabric for the heart patch

3” x 3” square of Heat N Bond Lite® for the heart patch

2 layers of Wet N Gone fibrous water soluble stabilizer for the 4” x 4” hoop for each patch

Tear away stabilizer for the embroidered designs

Threads per the color charts can be rayon or polyester, but polyester thread is recommended for the borders.

Spray adhesive

Optional: Fray Check

Purchased denim jacket in desired size

Designs used in this project

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs10

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs06

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs04

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs05

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs09

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs08

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs07

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs03

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs02

https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/productdetails/pat-williams/designs/1/ksgs01

Final Product: What You Will Create

Preface:

Due to the number of heavy, closely placed seams in a small denim jacket it makes sense to make sew-on patches to decorate the jacket. These are fun and easy to do. The jacket in the photos is a size 3T. You may want to make a different number of patches for the size jacket you are decorating so the materials are listed for each individual patch. Using fibrous water soluble stabilizer to make the patch gives us a cleaner border for the patch. The designs used in this project can also be sewn as regular applique designs.

Step 1:

Cut a 4” x 4” square of white cotton twill and Pellon Craft Fuse 809® for the patch and hoop two layers of fibrous water soluble in a 4” x 4” hoop. Fuse the Pellon Craft Fuse 809® to the back of the twill fabric following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Step 2:

Run color stop (CS) 1 in white to stitch the placement line for the fabric.

Step 3:

Spray adhesive on the back of the prepared fabric and position over the placement line so that the fabric exceeds the placement lines by about ½” in all directions.

Step 4:

Run CS 2 to tack down then fabric and then trim the fabric right next to the tack down stitches.

Step 5:

Follow the color chart to complete the embroidery. Polyester thread is recommended for that final border.

Step 6:

Trim the stabilizer approximately 1/8th to ¼” around the design.

Step 7:

Dip the corner of a sponge or rag in hot water and run it around the design to remove the rest of the stabilizer. Lay the sugar skull on a towel to dry.

Step 8:

When dry place the square of Heat N Bond Lite® on the back of the skull. Turn the skull and Heat N Bond Lite® face down. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to fuse the Heat N Bond Lite® to the patch. Allow the patch to cool completely before handling.

Step 9:

With small scissors trim the excess Heat N Bond close to the borders of the patch. The water soluble stabilizer will have semi-sealed the border and the patch has some thickness so you should be able to trim right up to the edges of the borders without cutting any threads on the border. If in doubt have a bottle of Fray Check handy to seal any border threads that might be nicked. All of the skull patches are made following these 9 steps.

Step 10:

The heart patch is slightly different as there is an appliqued heart inside the turquoise heart. Apply the Pellon Craft Fuse to the turquoise fabric and the 3” square of Heat N Bond Lite® to the lime green square. Stitch the placement line and tack down line for the turquoise square as in Steps 1 through 4 above. Then stitch a placement line with CS 3 for the inner heart and tack down with CS 4. Trim both the inside and outside hearts and fuse the lime green heart with an applique iron. Complete the patch following Steps 6 through 9.

Step 11:

Lay out the patches to see how you will want to place them on your jacket.

Step 12:

I wanted to embroider the coordinating embroidery designs on the jacket before I fused on the patches, so I outlined where I wanted the patches to go with a white marking pen.

Step 13:

There are three small coordinating designs to stitch directly on the jacket. The placement is absolutely random, so stitch them wherever you like. These are KSGS08, KSGS09 and KSGS10.

Step 14:

Hoop tear away stabilizer in your 4” hoop. Do not hoop the jacket. Spray adhesive on the jacket in the area you wish to embroider and stick it to the stabilizer.

Step 15:

Use the trace function on your machine, consult your manual if you don’t know how to find this function, and trace around the area in which you want to place the embroidery. You want to avoid stitching over the seams.

Step 16:

Stitch the designs following the color chart or changing the colors to suit. Lift the jacket from the stabilizer leaving the tear away in the hoop.

Step 17:

Slide another scrap of tear away stabilizer under the hoop and stitch another embroidery design. Move the designs to the top and bottom of the hoop to avoid stitching over the previous hole for the most part. You can get two to three designs sewn using the one hooping of the stabilizer this way.

Step 18:

Fuse the appliques in the marked locations following the Heat N Bond Lite® manufacturer’s instructions. Due to the white backgrounds on these patches I used a pressing cloth over the applique to prevent scorching or spotting.

Step 19:

Use a sleeve ham, a sleeve board or roll up a hand towel and insert it in the sleeve to fuse sleeve patches. Place sleeve patches high enough on the sleeve so that you will be able to fold the sleeve into the arm hole to later be able to stitch them down at your sewing machine. Alternately you can open up the inside sleeve seam between the cuff and the underarm to be able to stitch patches on the sleeves.

Step 20:

Using the same poly embroidery thread on your sewing machine and a size 11 needle stitch around the inside of the border of the appliques to permanently apply them to the jacket. A short stitch length of 2 mm made it easier to stitch around the small curves in the patch.

Step 21:

Congratulations your Kids Sugar Skull Patch Jacket is complete! Be sure to look for our Sugar Skull Softies project next week for softies that match the sugar skulls on this jacket.

For the love of embroidery…
Pat Williams

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Meet the Author: Pat Williams

Award winning Digitizer, Embroidery Educator, Author and a Consultant to the Industry, Pat Williams has 30 years of experience in the embroidery industry. Pat has won multiple awards for her digitizing expertise including the 2007 Impressions Awards Grand Championship, Best of Show as well as the 1st and 2nd Place Awards. Pat’s love of digitizing has afforded her the opportunity to write numerous articles for Impressions magazine in the United States and Images Magazine in Europe. In 2001 Pat was named “Embroidery Educator of the Year.” For many years Pat taught digitizing seminars at the ISS Shows in Long Beach, CA and for Compucon software. She now resides in Tucson, AZ.

Kids Sugar Skull Patch Jacket Embroidery Project

PROJECT DETAILS

Project Preview Video

Kids Sugar Skull 1

Kids Sugar Skull 2

Kids Sugar Skull 3

Kids Sugar Skull 4

Kids Sugar Skull 5

Kids Sugar Skull 6

Kids Sugar Skull Coordinating Heart

Kids Sugar Skull Coordinating Flower

Kids Sugar Skull Coordinating Star

Kids Sugar Skull Coordinating Small Heart