A STEM Project: Making an Appliquéd Patch Using TurtleStitch and Sewing a Simple Zippered Pouch

Making an Appliquéd Patch Using TurtleStitch

Embroidering designs with TurtleStitch is so much fun.  You take a scrap of fabric and create a beautiful embroidered panel. But wait, what happens if there is not enough fabric to make your desired project.  In this blog posting, I will explain how to make an appliquéd patch out of your design using TurtleStitch.  Your design will be embroidered onto another piece of fabric that will become the material from which you make your final project.

Here is my program in TurtleStitch to make an appliquéd patch.  https://www.turtlestitch.org/users/Elaine/projects/Applique%20Patch Determine the size of your desired patch and run the program with these measurements. Load this program onto your embroidery machine.

From your embroidered panel, measure and mark your embroidered piece so that each side is one inch greater than your desired appliquéd patch.  Make sure that the embroidered piece is aligned correctly, so that it is not crooked, before cutting the marked patch.

Find the center of the embroidered piece.  Mark the center with a pencil. Place the embroidered piece on top of your stabilizer and your project fabric as shown above. I taped the edges of my embroidered piece with Scotch tape to adhere the piece so that it would not move during the tacking process.  (In the photo above, I initially used pins to align the piece.)

Insert the layered pieces onto the embroidery hoop. Try to align the piece as best as you can into the embroidery hoop so that your embroidered design is not crooked.

Insert the hoop onto your embroidery machine. Before embroidering the design, put the needle into the down position to see if the needle and center pencil mark align.

If not, move the needle using the above screen until the needle and the pencil mark align.

Embroider the straight stitch to tack down the patch.

Remove the hoop from the embroidery machine. DO NOT remove the hoop as it needs to be put back into the embroidery machine at the same location as before. Remove the Scotch tape. Cut around the edges of the patch with scissors.  Try to get as close to the edge of the stitches without cutting the project fabric or inside the patch area.

Place the hoop back into the embroidery machine and stitch the rest of the embroidery.

Remove the stabilizer.  The fabric is now ready to be used for your project.

I used the following instructions from Youtube to make my simple zippered pouch with boxed corners. The flat bottom allows for the pouch to stand upright.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFMM3d_TVYI