Felt Butterfly and Moth Patches

These DIY felt butterfly and moth patches were inspired by the patches that I use to sew on to my jean jacket and backpack when I was a teenager. This is Lorrie Everitt from @makeandmerryco and I am so happy to share my felt butterfly and moth patch projects with you.

For this post, I used The Felt Store’s 100% Wool and Premium Wool Blend craft felt in a variety of colors. I cut all of my felt shapes using a Cricut Maker and my SVG cutting files but you can also use my use my pattern templates to cut your felt using small fabric scissors.

I hope that you will want to create these felt patches, so I have included a free download for my SVG files and the pattern templates in this post. Please note that the SVG files and pattern templates are for personal use only.

Materials

• Craft Felt
• Embroidery Floss
• Assorted Beads and Sequins
• Embroidery and Beading Needles
• Scissors
• Butterfly and Moth Pattern Templates

If you are going to use a cutting machine to cut your felt you will also need:

• Moth SVG Template
• Butterfly SVG Template
• Cricut Maker
• Cricut Rotary Blade
• Pink Fabric Grip Mat or Green Standard Grip Mat

These are the felt colors and matching DMC embroidery floss (#’s) that I used to create my patches:

100% Wool felt in Natural (#ecru), Cream (#746), Petal (#3713) and Coral (#760) and Premium Wool Blend felt in Mint (#946) and Sky Blue (#3841).

 

Steps

1. Cut out your felt using either the Cricut cutting machine or by printing out the provided template and cutting the felt manually. We'll go over both methods in this step.

How to cut the felt using the Cricut Maker:

Download the SVG files and save them on your computer.

Upload the artwork to Cricut’s Design Space, separate the color layers so you cut only the shapes that you need for each color of felt.*

Machine settings - Use the Cricut Rotary Blade and select the material “Felt, Wool Fabric”.

*Note: I am not going to give instructions for how to use a Cricut Maker or Cricut Design Space in this post. If this is your first time using a Cricut Maker or Cricut Design Space for cutting felt, I recommend that you can go to the Cricut website to learn more. I also found it helpful to watch YouTube videos for how to cut felt and fabric when I was learning how to use my Cricut Maker.

How to cut the felt using the pattern templates:

Print out the pattern templates on standard 8.5 x 11” paper “size as is”.

I recommend using a good pair of fabric scissors that will allow you to easily cut the small details.

Project Tip: If you plan to make more than one of each of these patches, keep your cut felt pieces organized by storing  them separately.

2. Use a blanket stitch to applique the body and wings to the backing using two strands of embroidery floss. The blanket stitch adds a decorative finish to the shapes but if you are new to embroidery or you just want to keep it simple, you can sew a straight stitch.

To assemble the butterfly (and moth) you will hand sew the body and wings to the backing in the order as shown in the photo below.

3. Now to the fun part where you make these patches your own. Start by cutting out small shapes from your felt scraps that can be added the wings.

Please note that these decorative shapes are not shown in the pattern. The shapes are totally up to you, just keep in mind you will need two of each shape so you can repeat the design on both wings.

Get creative with your felt colors, beads and sequins. Plan out what you are going to do and once you have a design that you are happy with, use one strand of embroidery floss and a beading needle to sew them to the wings.

You can also add tiny embroidery details to decorate the wings using two strands of embroidery floss in colors that will stand out and compliment your felt colors.

Use my butterfly and moth patches as inspiration for how to decorate your wings but please keep in mind that there’s no right or wrong way to embellish these patches.

So get creative with the bead supplies and embroidery skills that you have.

You can sew your patches to just about anything. I recommend using the same color of embroidery floss as your background felt color.

Here’s a few of the ways that I have used my felt patches.

Made a tote bag a little more personal.

Made a Me-Made quilt coat a little more “me”.

Made another hoop art and of course framed it with a scallop circle felt frame.

Made my gift wrapping a little extra special so that the bag will be reused.

And that is it! I hope that this inspires you to make some of these butterfly and moth patches.

If you enjoy having get togethers with creative friends, this is a great project idea that you can share. Just pre-cut all of the felt shapes and have everyone bring a stash of beads and sequins that can be shared.

I would love to see your finished projects so please tag @the_felt_store and myself at @makeandmerryco so we can see your finished projects.

If you have questions about this blog or any of our other DIY tutorials, send us an email at sales@thefeltstore.com or call us at 1-866-757-3358.