Vintage Sew On Appliques from the 60's and 70's

I have been enjoying collecting vintage appliques as I stock them for my Etsy vintage shop. They are not easy to find. So far I prefer to get ones from the 60’s that are the sew-on kind. The glue-on ones still work best with quick little stitches to hold them in place. The older ones with no glue are softer generally and easier to work with when sewing. There is also the difference between appliques and patches. Either can be used to patch something, cover a stain or add an adornment of a picture to fabric. The appliques generally are softer and have no raised edge like the more solid patches that are often used on jeans or denim jackets.

I have seen appliques and patches showing up in all sorts of situations, whether on bomber jackets, or these Tommy Hilfiger jeans that I show in the photo from amny.com/fashion. I also recently was walking in Greenwich Village and saw that the shop Brandy Melville uses them to decorate their shop. I am not sure how old the ones they had on display were but they certainly added a unique vintage look in the shop and shop windows. The photo below of the lady with the hat and hot pants with appliques I found on Pinterest.

I recently added appliques to two of my sweaters. One is a soft really nice sweater from Uniqlo that was a gift but somehow I managed to get a couple of moth holes on the shoulder of the sweater. So I sewed these two lovely vintage floral appliques over the shoulder. The other sweater is just a simple sweater but I liked the instant vintage look that was achieved by sewing the vintage pale blue flower applique onto the sweater. I have been having repairs done in my apartment so I had to go stand in a different spot and I am not truly in the mood for an outfit post with all this going on. There will be better days for focusing on that! I did want to show you those appliques, though.

I have several other appliques in my Etsy shop. I am adding some more appliques soon. I have larger owls coming and some nautical captain’s wheels as well. They are fun to collect and as long as one knows basic sewing they should be an easy addition to sweaters, jeans or bags for instance. In this post, I inserted a picture of a skirt from my Etsy shop that has a 70’s applique on it. I think they are also handy for adding to modern clothing for a quick vintage look.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. My feet are healing up well from the last surgery now and I was recently able to run for seven minutes! I am looking forward to being able to bike ride a lot in the spring and it is a pure joy to have healthier feet!