As a pretty limited amount of you DreamViewers might know, I am an artsy fartsy type.

Recently some of my friends suggested that I make patches of some of my art: being a student of an artsy fartsy school full of artsy fartsy people I could sell, or most likely just give away, some artsy fartsy patches.

Regardless of any potential income, I am curious about trying this out. The problem is, I have NO CLUE as to how to get started. I have perused the internet a bit, but I either find how-to's concerning embroidered patches (ones in which the image is created by way of furious, tedious stitching that sucks ass at showing fine detail) or complicated silk screen stuff that seems to be expensive and easy to mess up.

So far the best thing I've seen is a stencil applied with acrylic paint. Since I'm not sure about how well acrylic handles the fury of machine washings I'd probably use fabric paint, but I have NO experience in this and I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on paint that ends up being awful for what I want to do with it.

Also, I have no idea what fabric is used for patches and I'm not entirely sure where and for how much I'll buy the heat-activated glue sheets but that part is in my far future at this point in time.


Please tell me ANYTHING that might be useful, whether you have done stencil art or some variety of t-shirt designing or happen to own a collection of patches that's telling of the fabric used to make them.