How to Sew on Badges
Badges have been around for as long as the clothes they are placed on. Badges of all types and materials have been used to decorate clothing, convey political, spiritual or fashionable messages, they have also been used to identify people and where or to whom they belong. Although on occasion misused in history, I will always associate cloth and button badges with the Peace, Love, Psychedelic message of the late 60's.
Love them or loathe them, there will eventually come a point where we all end up having to sew badges onto some kind of uniform. Most likely they will be for your children's school uniform or clubs, or even for work and military badges. You can attach them using glue or hand or machine sew them, I have always found hand sewing the quickest and easiest way to attach my children's badges neatly and securely!
Here are some tips to help make it easy and stressfree!
1) Position the badge where you would like it to be on the garment. Attach it with a pin or two to keep it in place. Match your sewing thread to either the outside thread of the badge or the material of the garment you're sewing it on.
2) Cut a fair length of thread. Enough to complete the job in one but not so much that it gets caught up whilst you sew.
3) Thread your needle and tie a knot in the end of the thread.
4) Make the first stitch through the top of the garment, underneath where the badge will sit. This is so the end of the thread with the knot will be hidden under the badge.
5) Pass the needle back through the garment to the inside, the stitches on this side are best if made small but as it's on the inside it doesn't matter all that much. In my book ensuring the badge is securely attached is most important as this will mean you won't have to sew it on again!
6) After making this small stitch back through to the outside of the garment, pass the needle through the badge, catching the edge of it, this is usually stitched as per the badge in the photo.
Pass your needle back through the garment and catch another small stitch to come back out.
I have tried to show this in the photo, the stitch on the clothing is very small, most of the thread is going through the outside of the badge.
Continue these stitches roughly 5mm apart, the main stitch itself will be hidden under the edging of the badge.
7) After sewing all around the badge, finish by threading a few stitches through the garment and badge to be sure the thread won't become loose.
Be careful at this stage not to 'gather' the garment material behind the badge by pulling too tight. I did this a little on the one in the top photo, the gathering is at the top of the badge where I went back over previous stitches too tightly.
