Paganoonoo: Sourcing Patches for Embellished Garments and Accessories

Thursday, January 1, 2026

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.

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

Where to find them:

Thrift stores, estate sales, family and friends, vintage shops, church rummage sales, op shops, eBay, Etsy, etc.
Vintage: Embroidered, printed, cross-stitched, painted, needlework, crocheted, etc.

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

Pre-cut Kantha Cloth Scraps on Etsy shop KanthaHome