Upgrade Last Season’s Dress With Flair Patches and Embroidery
Coachella is over, but hot weather dresses live on! Do you have a dress in your wardrobe that needs an upgrade? If your obsession with patches and embroidery (hello cactus elbow patches and embroidered sneakers!) is as intense as ours, you’ll understand why we used both to embellish last year’s dress. Not sure which patches to buy? Read about how to pair patches and pins with your personality. Not sure where your patches should go? We’ve got you covered with this list of places to put a patch.
A few patches, embroidery patterns and bright colored thread will take your plain white dress to the next level.
Materials:
— flair patches (you can find these on Amazon or Etsy)
— sewing pins (in case any of the patches don’t stick, this will keep them in place when you sew)
— needle
— embroidery thread (bright colors rock!)
— bright colored thread for sewing
— blue tape
Tools:
— iron
— ironing board
— linen napkin or tea towel to cover your patches while ironing
— sewing machine
— scissors
Tape off sections where you would like to put your patches. Pro tip: It’s helpful to ask a friend to put on the dress and THEN tape, as it will give you a better sense of how the dress falls on the body. We loved the line symmetry of the dress and wanted to highlight the shape with a triangle formation.
Place your flair patches where you want them. Pro tip: Do this step on your ironing board. It will be much easier than transferring the dress from one surface to another.
Since our dress had an extra flap in the front, we wanted to lay out our patches beforehand to get them just right. We took a photo to help us recreate our design after ironing one side since the patches on the other side moved around. Another way to keep them in place is to use your sewing pins. Lay your linen napkin or tea towel over your patches, press your iron on top for 15-20 seconds, move over to the other section and keep ironing until all of the patches have adhered to the dress.
To add some more flair and security, we added some stitches to various parts of each patch with bright green thread.
Next, we added some embroidered touches. We used tips and tricks from our embroidery class and adorned the spaces around the patches.
Wear this dress without a necklace to keep the focus on the patches.
Such a great conversation piece!
Show us your patchwork dress by tagging us on Instagram + using the hashtag #iamcreative!
DIY Production and Styling: Anita
Photography: Chris Andre and Kurt Andre
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