Sourcing Patches for Embellished Garments and Accessories

A Great Way to Upcycle Garments and Accessories

I'm fascinated by and often charmed by upcycled, embellished garments and accessories.

The first time I saw Magnolia Pearl garments, my jaw dropped. A woman in my fashion design program (circa 2019) was a collector and would wear her garments to class. I had never seen anything like them.

Recently, I wanted to take the basic concept and make my own. I started to study embellished garments and collect images on Pinterest.

Below are some of the sources I’ve found most useful when looking for patch-worthy imagery and materials.

Inspiration: Upcycled Garments Pinterest Board

Patches

I noticed that the least accessible (to me) type of embellishments were patches. The patches I liked were not available from most traditional fabric sources. Where were these patches coming from?

Square or Fussy Cut?

When I say patches, some are square, but many are “fussy cut.”

For example, if these birds were cut out of the fabric to be used as individual elements, you would say the birds were “fussy cut.”

The way many people apply fussy cuts is to leave a rough border around the image and stitch it down right at the edge of the image, leaving a raw edge. Then cut all but about a ¼" of the border away.

I noticed that with regular quilting cotton, most of the images I liked were too small in scale for fussy cutting.

I started hunting for other sources of patches. Here’s what I found.

Source #1:  Spoonflower – on demand fabric printing service.  

You can upload and print your own designs or select from the thousands and thousands of designs already available. Spoonflower has a keyword search and category function to help you find what you want.

Samples
(The titles link to the artist’s Spoonflower page):

Beetle Bling

Sweet Baroque Kitty

On Spoonflower’s website, there are options for very specific search parameters in the left-hand column. The tough part is wading through the hundreds of thousands of designs to find large-scale motifs you want.

You can also design and print your own. I’ve done this by purchasing clip art on Etsy, arranging it in Procreate, exporting the file, and uploading it to Spoonflower to scale and proof. Whew. Quite a bit of work to get exactly what you want.

Unless you enjoy that sort of thing. 

For me, it feels like coloring. Here is one of my collections:

Michelle's Red collection

My friend Pamela Schneider has a variety of romantic and vintage-style patch designs:

Pamela's Patches 

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Some people specialize in creating patches professionally, which brings us to the next category.

Source #2: Sellers of Patches

Etsy: OpalAnnie71 

A large collection of printed patches, including holiday themed designs. 

Etsy: Gathered Goods Vintage 

Etsy: Hanna Faulk Art

Fruitful Life Studio by Rhonda Church Finfrock

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Source #3: Upholstery and Home Décor Fabric

Frequently used by Traci Myers, as seen on her YouTube Upcycled Fashion channel.

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Source #4: Vintage or Second-Hand Linens

Vintage: Embroidered, printed, cross-stitched, painted, needlework, crocheted, Suffolk puffs a.k.a. yo-yo’s, etc.

2nd Hand: duvet covers, sheets, curtains, pillows, etc.

Where to find them:

Thrift stores, estate sales, family and friends, vintage shops, church rummage sales, op shops, eBay, Etsy, etc.

Pre-cut Kantha Cloth Scraps on Etsy shop KanthaHome

Pre-cut quilt patches on Etsy shop Shadsy

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Source #5 - Collaged Patches

MyBonny shop on Etsy 

Brookstone Cottage on Etsy

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Source #6 - StampYour Own

I’ve had very good success using hand carved wooden stamps, either with fabric paint  (Lumiere by Jacquard), or fabric ink pads (Tsukineko) printed on cotton. Always practice on scraps first, on a hard and a slightly padded surface. See which works best. 

Stamps from: Charan Creations on Etsy

 ***

Keyword searches on any of these terms are likely to yield you more results. This is just a small sampling of what is available. 

Where do you source patches? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

Happy embellishing!

Michelle Paganini, Designer for Paganoonoo

P.S. Stay tuned…

The next post will feature inspiration garments and accessories.

#upcycling #embellishment #patching #textileart #slowfashion #patches #textileartists #upcycleartists

New Paganoonoo Upcycle Sewing Release! The Laura Dress / Tunic Tutorial

Welcome to Paganoonoo

If you’re new to Paganoonoo, welcome! Paganoonoo specializes in creating tutorials for home sewists that teach the refashion/upcycle process. Many of our designs start with men’s dress shirts—why? They offer good-quality fabric and construction and are easily available secondhand. 

If you'd like to learn how to refashion men's dress shirts, keep reading!

“The greenest clothing is that which has already been made. It gets even greener when refashioned and worn.”
                                                        — Michelle Paganini

Meet Our Newest Design:
The Laura Dress or Tunic

The Laura Dress began with a stack of men’s dress shirts and a vision of a comfortable, flattering silhouette for everyday life. There’s a special magic in turning something ordinary into something you love to wear!

Design Description

The Laura Dress — or tunic — is a babydoll style with a raised empire waist. Made from secondhand dress shirts, it can be loosely fit and flare, or very loose-fitting.

Pattern Tester Jane Snider's Tunic version

The torso section is made from an intact dress shirt, while the skirt portion is made from sleeves. Get a perfect fit by selecting a torso dress shirt that is already a perfect fit in the bust/back/arms.

It can be lengthened with a tiered skirt or shortened with a raw-edged scalloped hem fashioned from upside-down sleeves, using their raw shoulder seams as the hem.

The Laura Dress pairs perfectly with a slip dress or bloomers, making it a great choice for layering or Lagenlook style.

Tiered version of the Laura Dress

Construction: How It's Made

You get a perfect fit by selecting a shirt for your torso that already fits your bust, shoulders and arms the way you like.  Nothing is altered above the armhole, so the fit you start with is the fit you end up with.  The skirt section is loose fitting.

Sleeves already set in, the cuffs, plackets, collar, and buttonholes are already finished, and the buttons are sewn on! You get to skip these construction details.

Scalloped hem with bloomers

The bottom half is made from sewn together inverted dress shirt sleeves, where the cuffs form the waistband of the skirt. That single twist makes the Laura unique and playful. Both styles keep the essence of the original shirt while becoming something entirely new.

Why This Dress / Tunic Matters

Flattering and comfortable clothing that also feels stylish, is eco friendly and budget friendly can be a challenge to find—especially for curvy women and those of us in the peri- to post-menopause age group.

Like me: a post-menopausal, pear-shaped, curvy lady (size 14/16). I designed this dress for myself and received so many compliments every time I wore it that I knew it should be the next Paganoonoo design release.

The babydoll cut offers breathing room without sacrificing style. And because it’s upcycled, every dress tells its own story.

Sew green, feel comfortable, and look great!

Styled with layers: petticoat & scarf

Upcycle Sewing Tutorial vs. Sewing Pattern

Unlike traditional sewing patterns, the Paganoonoo method for the Laura Dress requires no pattern pieces. 

Instead, the sewist starts with existing garments (not regular flat-fold cloth) and is guided through the deconstruction and reconstruction process. Think of it as 3D sewing.

The tutorial provides step-by-step instructions and illustrations showing how to transform 5–7 men’s dress shirts into a babydoll dress.

Skill Level

Recommended for intermediate sewists who are ready for a unique project.

Usually make a muslin? Here’s the upcycling method: start with old shirts you don’t love for your first try—it’s a great way to manage the learning curve.

Get Started Now:
Make Your Own Laura!

👉 Shop the Laura Tutorial

Get 15% off with code: LauraBlog

Happy Upcycling!

Michelle Paganini
Founder & Designer, Paganoonoo

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#howtorefashionsadressshirt #oldshirtrefashion #upcycleddressshirts #sewingover50 #babydolldress #curvysewing #lagenlook #wintersewing #paganoonoo #michellepaganini #upcycledmensshirts #upcycledfashion #loosefittingdress #sewingpatterns #pdfpatterns #tunicpattern #how to upcycleclothes #advancedstylesewing

From Vintage Linens to One-of-a-Kind Paganoonoo Carol Jacket

There’s a special kind of magic that happens when you give old textiles new life. Recently, I finished a Paganoonoo Carol Jacket that began as two mid-century cotton tablecloths and a set of embroidered dish towels.

Now there is a joyful, story-filled jacket that carries both history and personal style!

The Finished Jacket

Here’s the jacket in its final form. I love it! 

The model is Carol Worthington Levy, for whom the jacket is named. She is the graphic designer and dear friend who helped me translate the Carol design into a PDF pattern format that can be printed at home or sent to a copy shop. It is my first Paganoonoo Pattern (the rest are tutorials). 

Although I didn’t make the garment specifically for Carol, it fits her perfectly and she looks beautiful in it. I'm going to gift it to her — how could I not?  They are meant for each other.

Choosing the Materials

Speaking of gifting, lucky me, Candy Olson gave me boxes of vintage textiles some years ago that included these tablecloths. I've been thinking about what to do with them.  I noticed that Patternreview.com was having an upcycle sewing contest—perfect!

I picked out these two mid-century cotton tablecloths for the body and front band, and a set of vintage embroidered dish towels for the sleeves. To tie in the sleeves, I appliquéd motifs cut from the linens, plus some swallows I had printed on Spoonflower (a fabric printing service).

Double Check your Vintage Materials

Vintage linens often come with quirks — frayed edges, stains, holes, fading, fraying, worn spots, etc.

Turns out for one of these tablecloths the print wasn’t centered, which meant the white edges varied in width — I did not notice this at first. To prepare for cutting, I did what I usually do: align all the edges, smooth out any bumps and folds.

Luckily, I wanted to make sure that the corners and edges of the colored print matched up.  I put a pin in the corner of the colored corner and pushed through to the second layer and looked to see if it matched the corner on the other side — No! It turned out that the white border was ½" off. 

I needed the printed centers to match. I explored with the pin until I had both corners matched up. I realized I would need to pin down the whole colored edges to exactly match before I could cut a pair of front panels. It took extra time and careful positioning, but those kinds of challenges are part of the fun.

There were also small holes in the tablecloths and a frayed edge on one of the dish towels. I fixed this with patched mending.

Cutting & Planning the Layout

The Carol Jacket pattern is loose-fitting, unlined, and works beautifully to highlight the complex patterns on a vintage tablecloth (it can be made with old jeans, dress shirts, or vintage cutter quilts too). To maximize the tablecloth designs, I made a few changes:

Almost added a beetle,
but did not.

• Split the back piece into two pieces with a center seam so I could include as much of the colored sections as possible and cut out as much of the white center as possible.  I wanted each side to be symmetrical.
  
  

• Added patching to the top of the sleeves (harvested from the tablecloth) because the dishcloth was mostly plain.
  
  Added giant rick-rack to the cuff — purchased years ago and I've always wanted to use some! It seemed like a perfect mid-century accent.   

• Widened the front band to show off the beautiful geranium border print, applying it with an overlap & topstitch instead of the usual right-sides-together method.  Stitched on by hand the day of the contest deadline because I was on post-surgery bedrest!

• Added appliqué birds on the sleeves for extra detail and movement.
  
  

Construction

The pattern itself is easy to sew, with only the band intersection being slightly tricky. You make a clip in the back shoulder seam — to the stitching line to release the fabric, allowing the band to be applied continuously.

Problem-Solving with Creativity

Uneven prints, narrow borders, unexpected stains — these are all part of sewing with vintage linens. Instead of seeing them as problems, I accept and visibly mend them, or let them guide my design choices. In this case, splitting the back seam and widening the band turned limitations into highlights.

Using Vintage Textiles for Garment?
...OK or NOT?

In the sewing world, there’s an ongoing debate: Is it okay to cut into vintage textiles? Quilts, tablecloths, and hand-stitched linens often carry deep history, and some people believe they should remain intact, preserved as they are.

I respect that perspective — but I also believe textiles are meant to be lived with, worn, and enjoyed. Too often, these pieces sit folded away in drawers, unseen and unused. By reworking them into garments, we can bring their beauty back into daily life. This is especially true for damaged textiles — we can salvage what is usable.

Based on the increasing numbers of upcycles I see done with vintage textiles on Pinterest and Etsy, I think there are others who agree. I’ve also noticed the prices of vintage textiles on eBay and on Etsy are rising, but I don't see anyone using them as originally intended.

For me, upcycling is a way of honoring the original makers by giving their creations a new life. When I wear garments made with vintage linens, I feel like I’m carrying those stories with me, while also adding my own.

The Joy of Upcycling

Every time I finish an upcycled garment, I’m reminded why I do this work:

• To rescue textiles that deserve another chapter
• To honor the handwork and design of those who came before
• To create unique clothing that can’t be bought off the rack
• To use existing resources rather than purchasing recently manufactured goods (greener choices)
• For the sheer joy of creating!

This Carol Jacket isn’t just a garment — it’s a celebration of history, craft, and creative reuse

You...

Have you ever tried sewing with vintage linens? 

What treasures have you transformed? 

Share your stories in the comments — I’d love to hear them!

Next? 

I’m guessing this project sparked ideas! 

Want to make your own? The Paganoonoo Carol Jacket PDF pattern is available as a digital download. 25% off through October 31, 2025.  Use code carol25 

This casual, unlined jacket is inspired by the Japanese hanten style, with a wrap front that hangs closed without buttons or ties. Two upcycle-friendly versions are included: one made from dress shirts (using the original cuffs) and one from denim jeans (reusing hems).  It is easily adapted to vintage linens, quilts and a variey of textiles. 

Offered in tiled PDF for home printing or full-size for copy shop printing, it’s suited for advanced beginner or intermediate sewists.  

There are also other upcycle tutorials to explore: Visit Paganoonoo on Etsy or our website.

See a trunk show of Paganoonoo garments and find out more about our upcycling methods. Watch this Video.

Want even more inspiration? See my collection of upcycling pins on Pinterest — garments and accessories. 

Happy Upcycling!  Michelle Paganini

Matchy Matchy Sewing Club: Collage Gather Top - upcycled from patchworked dress shirts scraps

Hi, I'm Michelle Paganini, a committed upcycle sewist, owner and designer for Paganoonoo. Typically you will find me altering already made garments to create designs and tutorials for Paganoonoo. 

I was recently inspired to try an Indie pattern. A fellow upcyclist, Karen Sullivan, of Sullys Upcycled, made a version of this top that I fell in love with. The pattern is from the Matchy Matchy Sewing Club and the name is the Collage Gather Top.

 

                                    Karen Sullivan

I decided to give it a try. Here are my results. 

Michelle Paganini

Modifications I Made

I made some modifications from the pattern to accommodate my plus size (14/16 retail) pear-shaped figure:

• Widened back & front panels below bust to be slightly more A line to accommodate my pear shape.
  
  
• Increased width of side panels by 50% to accommodate my pear shape.
  
  
• Added decorative outside bias tape on the neckline and hem - wanted more contrast (for balance)

• Used bias tape on sleeves instead of pattern cuff to create harmony and balance with neckline and hem.
  
  
• Lengthened by several inches to accommodate my full bust and belly.
  
  
• Lowered front neckline slightly for comfort
  
  
• I did not like the light colored mid-back panel on its own. I added a contrasting red square.

Sewing Challenges I Encountered

I am used to doing only deconstruction/reconstruction upcycle sewing (Paganoonoo), and not traditional patterns. I made many, many mistakes, lol. 

• Applied folded bias tape with the fold on the seam, raw edges out. Had to rip and resew.
   
• Make neck bias tape strip too short by 2.5”. Had to patch.
  
  
• Lost a pattern piece.  Printed and taped a new one.  Realized I now had 2 backs. Printed and taped another front.
  
  
• My front panel fabric was heavily patched. I cut it out with the *fold* not on the fold - so I got 2 pieces instead of one.  Rendered it unusable. Had to make whole new patched front panel. 
  
  
• Sewed a set of panels wrong side to right side. Ripped and re-sewed.
  
  
• Ran out of fabric pieces big enough for a side panel so I patched one from 4 fabrics. (not really a mistake).

P.S. I have been sewing for more than 50 years and am a formally trained fashion designer.  Not sure I've ever made a garment without using my seam ripper.

What I Learned / Techniques Used

• It was time consuming to color block with reclaimed fabric, cutting, planning combos - although I really liked the end results. 
  
  
• It would have been a smarter choice to make this first version with a sheet and work out fitting adjustments. Advice I've given others (make a practice version) but sometimes forget to do myself.
  
  
• Topstitched all seams, used pinking shears to finish inside seams
  
  
• Watched many Youtube tutorials on how to apply bias tape.  Found it easiest to attach from the inside and wrap towards the front. Learned not to stretch while sewing, especially on outside curves. 
  
  
• Might like it better in a more drapey fabric.  The dress shirt remnants were a bit stiff which makes it stand away from the body more than I like.
  
  
• I might do a bit more contouring on the center panel to accommodate my large bust without making the garment as wide.
  
  
• Looking at the picture of the back I see drag lines towards my upper back.  This tells me I need a a rounded back adjustment.
  
  
• Probably would be a very quick sew on a serger

• I love the way this top turned out and I will definitely make it again.

Plans for Next Time

I want to try using some cream colored embossed silk fabric that has spent years in my stash. It has a very nice drape and the color would be versatile.

Love to Upcycle? Paganoonoo makes upcycle sewing simple with tutorials for a variety of designs. Many start with men’s dress shirts (which is how I end up with so many scraps.) 

Get ready for Fall by transforming flannels into a flattering Patti fit and flare shirt

Get started today with 25% off 

Paganoonoo Upcycle Sewing Tutorials 

Use code MMSC252

The Michelle Dress makes a terrific duster or a dress. You can make the pockets almost knee deep!

The Carol jacket is a kimono style unlined jacket. 

Make it with jeans too: 

Or a vintage linen tablecloth:

Or make our most popular design, the Peggy.

Get started on any of these designs with 25% off 

Paganoonoo Upcycle Sewing Tutorials 

Use code MMSC252    

What are your favorite types of upcycles?  I'd love to hear in the comments below.

Happy upcycling,

Michelle Paganini 

#etsy #collagegathertop #matchymatchysewingclub #etsyseller         #paganoonoo #upcycledfashion #refashioned #mensdressshirtrefashion #mensshirtrefashion #sewingpatterns