Got the Morbs

"Got the morbs" is a slang phrase or euphemism used in the Victorian era. The phrase describes a person afflicted with temporary melancholy or sadness. The term was defined in James Redding Ware's 1909 book Passing English of the Victorian Era.

--Wikipedia

As a garment decorator, and especially as a maker of embroidered patches, the phrase 'Wear your heart on your sleeve' is one that means a lot to me. The entire idea of wearing patches, whether they are for bands, movies, or hobbies, is to express yourself as an individual to anyone within sight of you.

Which brings us to this week's newest patch design: Got the Morbs. It's obviously for the Goth-minded crowd, given the Olde English lettering, mourning-hued flowers, and of course, who knows more about the morbs than people who consume unhealthy amounts of Bauhaus and Byron?

I'm always looking for excuses to do something 'fancy' in my embroidery designs, and what says opulent better than metallic thread for border stitching? I also used the antiquarian subject of this design as a chance to play with more traditional emblem shapes, something I tend to stay away from in favor of borders that are contoured to fit the patch's graphic.

Design wise, there's nothing too complicated going on. I don't spend a whole lot of time digitizing floral objects for embroidery, which should be pretty obvious from the pictures, but I was pleasantly surprised with how the leaves and stems turned out at such a small scale (the entire patch is 3.75" for reference). The only real tweak that was needed was a global underlay placed underneath the circular satin stitches that comprise the two flower blossoms in order to fix the small amount of separation that you can see between them in the initial sew-outs pictured above.

The resulting aesthetic is equal parts gaudy, darkly goofy, and decidedly Victorian. Or, in other words, a perfect goth patch. It's available now as a non-limited regular production design in the shop.