MAKE | Heart Elbow Patch

AS SEEN PREVIOUSLY ON THE OXFAM FASHION BLOG...

 
Wear your heart on your sleeve, literally with this simple craft. Visit the Oxfam Online Shop for a selection of jumpers, shirts, sweaters and cardigans to customise. 

YOU WILL NEED:

A shirt, sweater or cardigan
Scrap material (big enough to cut two heart patches from)
Pencil
Scissors
Pins
Needle
Thread (either in matching or contrasting colour to your fabric)
Tape
Heart template (we drew around a heart cookie cutter but you could use a paper template)

STEP ONE
Draw around the heart template onto your scrap of material twice to outline your patches.

STEP TWO
Carefully cut out the two lovely heart shapes.

STEP THREE
Now you need to put on your chosen item so you can work out the positioning of your patches. This can be a bit fiddly but we've found it's helpful to bend your elbows then mark where they sit in your item with a piece of tape. It can be handy to grab an extra pair of hands to help with this.

STEP FOUR
Pin your patches where your tape markers are. Try your item on again to check the positioning and shift around where necessary.

STEP FIVE
When your patches are in the right place, blanket stitch (see below) around the edges of your heart to secure it in place.

STEP SIX
Repeat on the other patch and voila, you have a unique item made with love.

HANDY HINTS: THE BLANKET STITCH

- Anchor your thread by doing a couple of stitches underneath the patch and near where you're going to begin stitching.
- Push the needle through the garment and your patch approximately ½ - 1cm in from its edge.
- Pull thread through tight and push needle back through over the edge of the patch, back through the garment.
- Bring needle back through right next to where you just exited the last stitch.
- Approx ½-1cm along from and level with where the first stitch began, enter back through the patch and garment but don't pull the thread too tight so it leaves loop.
- Keeping it vertically in line with the entry hole, bring the needle back though the garment at the edge of the patch making sure you pass it through the loop of thread and pull tight. 
- Enter back through the patch and garment at ½-1cm along from the previous stitch, leaving a loop, and then bring back though at the edge of the patch again passing through the loop. Continue this pattern all along the edge of the patch.