How to Make a Punk Rock Patch!!

Patches have been used in punk rock fashion since the early 80s, but this is not an intro to punk fashion! However please, please, please learn a little bit about punk fashion before making these patches and putting them on your clothing. I'll give you a quick run down here, but I highly recommend doing your own research on punk fashion, music, and politics before adding this stuff to your clothing!

Punk patches are exactly what they sound like, its a patch of fabric that is often used to cover up holes in clothing. However punk took this a step further and turned patches into a fashion statement. Punks painted over their patches with political statements, band logos, and shocking imagery and the punk patch has since become one of the most recognizable pieces of punk fashion. Eventually, they stopped using these patches to just fix clothes and instead use them almost purely for patches.

This (along with a lot of other factors) led to the creation of the battle jacket. A battle jacket is a jacket that is covered in patches, most often these are band or political patches but the term battle jacket has become a lot more inclusive to include all kinds of patch jacket (patch jacket is another term for battle jacket). Above I have included pictures of what a lot of battle jackets tend to look like, they tend to be rugged, grungy, clearly handmade, and often smell bad (your not suppose to wash your battle jacket, I'll talk more about that later.)

If you want to learn more about punk fashion and music check out the Dead Chupacabra's youtube channel, if you want to learn more about punk politics, fashion, and way of life check out Madeline Pendleton's TikTok!

NOTE: This is how I prefer to make patches, there are other methods and this method isn't the end all be all.

SECOND NOTE: If you are a veteran punk and just reading this instructable to call people posers, leave. This is a beginners tutorial and we don't need to be gatekeeping patch making. Thank you <3

Alrighty! A lot of this stuff on this list isn't set in stone, you can replace them with anything you have on and that will server the same purpose.

You need:

• Computer and a printer (check out your local library!)
• X-acto knife or box cutter
• Fabric. I prefer denim but most fabrics work EXCEPT for certain knits and stretchy fabric, I'll talk more about this later.
• Paint. I use acrylic, but you can use any kind.
• Paint brush or sponge
• Safety pins or sewing pins
• Dental floss or thread (I'll talk about this more too)
• Sewing needle
• Clothes you want to patch up!

The easiest way to make patches that look nice is to use a patch stencil. But before you can even create a stencil, you have to pick the kind of patch you want to create. If you want something very specific you can just google "blah blah blah stencil" and pick a black and white image that you like. But there are a couple tricks you can use to find really cool stuff:

First, the sub reddit r/AnarchoStencilism has a lot of band patches that can be sorted by specific sub genera to find the bands you like!

Second, this is my personal patch inspiration board, (it will take you to my main fashion inspiration board, click on the section that says patches to see only patches.) a lot of these patches are more political or just look cool.

Third, pumpkin carving stencil are a very overlooked resource. They are super beginner friendly and have a wide range of options, they have just about everything you could think of.

Fourth, if you want it to be words rather than pictures, just look up font examples. They come with every letter of the alphabet so you can spell whatever you want! I personnaly like using the Mtn Dew font cuz it looks cool, but let me know if you find something awesome!

Fifth, if you can't find an stencil to use, you have two options: you could just free hand some stuff if you have good art skills OR you could create a black and white stencil out of a color image. You can follow this tutorial for more information, but I don't recommend this method. It doesn't work that often and when it does the results are sub-par, you will probably end up with a better result by just free handing it.

From here, download your stencil and print it out. If you don't have access to a printer at home, head to your local library! They almost always have a printer that you can use.

NOTE: Print on card stock if you can, this will make it a lot easier to cut out. If you don't have card stock, print it on printer paper and taper 5 more sheets of printer paper on the back to make it thicker. This will make the paint less likely to leak through the edges and make it easier to cut out.

For this tutorial, I will be using the peace sign above that I found in r/AnarchoStencilism under the non-band related tag. I recommend doing something like this shape for your first patch because it will make the patch easier to work with in the next steps.

REMEMBER: The next couple of steps are going to be a lot easier if you pick out a black and white stencil, with little to no small shapes, and the bigger the patch the better.

After you have printed your stencil, we move on to the fun stuff: KNIVES.

Use your X-acto knife or box cutter to remove all of the black parts of your stencil. The best way to do this is with a piece of wood or old hardcover book behind it, but sometimes I just do on my concrete floors (although this does dull the blade very fast.)

When you are cutting out the pieces be VERY CAREFUL about the thin white strips (highlighted above), if these rip, it makes the next step much harder to do.

After that, you should have an image that looks similar to what is above. Ignore the thick black lines, those are just from the screen shot I too and are unimportant. Additionally, I should have made it a little bigger, but it is what it is.

NOTE: Start with a sharp blade when doing this, If you do this with a dull blade the paper pills up and won't cut out as nice, leading to a messy stencil and a messy paint job.

There are a lot of different fabrics that you can make patches out of. Some of the most popular types include:

• Denim. Just cut out a square from an old pair of jeans.
• Leather. I don't have much experience with leather, but feel free to try it.
• Knits. I advise against knits, they tend to soak up the paint and leaving the image looking washed out.
• Woven. When painting with woven fabrics, put something underneath it that you don't mind getting paint on. It will soak through and stain you stuff if your not careful.

I will be using denim as my fabric of choice, but feel free to experiment! I have a bunch of old jeans lying around so I cut out a square of that, If you don't like the color of your jeans you can paint a base layer in black or white. Be warned though that this will make the patch a lot less flexable and use up a lot of paint.

Also, cut out your fabric a little bigger than what you think you need, you can always trim it smaller later!

Now we get to start paintint the patch! You have two options:

a) Pin the cardstock to the fabric

b) Hold the card stock down with heavy stuff. (I perfer this method because its esier to move bakc into place if you mess up

Once its held down, pick the paint you want to use!

There are some tricks to painting with paper stencils. Always paint AWAY from the edges and into the center. If you paint towards the edges, its a lot easier for the paint to bleed. You can also try to paint with a sponge and just dab the paint on there, I've never really had a lot of luck with this method though.

After you finish painting the patch, pul the stencil away and look at your work!! If you see any issues you would like to fix, do some free hand touch ups to the paint.

Make sure to wash off your brushes and trim the patch down to the size you want!

Now that you have a patch, you need to find a garment to sew it on to! I highly recomend a jacket or a backpack, like I'm doing. I reccomend against patching pants for your first time because when you patch pants you reduce the stretchy-ness and shrink the pants, making it very easy to mess up and make the pants unwearable after a lot of patches.

Before you start sewing, pin down the patch with some safty pins, this will keep the patch from moving while were sewing. You onlu need to pin 3 of the coners, because our first stiches will hold the last one down.

Now we get to the tricky part.

I suggest sewing your patches down with dental floss, it is a lot stronger than thread and won't fray and brake over time (also it makes your clothes smell minty). You can still use thread if you want, it does the same thing.

To find the amount of thread you need, wrap it around the patch 3 times and that should be about enough. If you find out you need more later, no big deal.

After that thread your needle, and tie a knot on the end. Make sure to leave a long tail, this will help keep the patch on even if the knot comes undone.

Now we can actually start sewing. The most common stich to use when attaching patches in the whip stich (heres a wiki how if your confused by my explanation).

1. Insert your first stich through the back and through both pieces of fabric, so you won't be able to see the knot
2. Go down through only the back fabric and not the patch. This creates your first stich!
3. Repeat step one and two going around the entire patch.

REMEBER: Its okay if your stiches are messy! I make many of my stiches messy on purpose to make them look cooler. As long as your patch stays attached to the garmet, you did it right!

Finnaly, flip the patch over to the back side and it should look something like what is above. And now all you need to do is tie it off. You can just tie it off like the first know, but I like to do some fancy stuff:

1. Lift up the last stich you made, withough undoing it
2. Bring the end of the thread through the loop
3. Pull the last stich tight
4. Turn the end thead section into another loop
5. Loop the end of the thread into the loop and create another loop in sort of an s shape
6. Loop the end of the tread through the top of the S, and pull it tight

If this explanation is confusing, don't worry! Just tie it off in any way that is secure.

BOOM! You have a super awesome patch and super unique clothes!

I hope you enjoyed this instructable and look more into punk fashion and culture!