King of the Grill Embroidery Design, BBQ Dad Apron Pattern, Instant Download

Its a badge, basically. Two concentric black circles form the border and inside that sits a black crown at the top, a BBQ fork on the left and a spatula on the right crossing over each other behind the text. Then in the centre the message stacks in three tiers: 'King' in big red bold letters at the top, 'of the' in a smaller black cursive in the middle, and 'Grill' in matching red block letters at the bottom. Looks like something youd find on a competition barbecue team's uniform and that's exactly the energy it brings to a fabric piece.

The badge format is what makes it versatile. It sits clean on a chest pocket, reads perfectly centred on an apron bib, and it scales down well enough to fit on a hat panel without losing the crown detail. At the 8-inch size all that black fill in the crown and utensils really comes through, the tines on the fork and the slots on the spatula head both stitch individually. At 3 inches it simplifies a bit but still reads as a proper badge rather than a smudge.

I reckon its one of the most bought designs I have for the father's day crowd, and last summer one customer told me she'd stitched it onto eight aprons in a single week for a market stall. Put it on black or dark navy fabric and use a white or cream thread swap for the black sections, with the red staying as is, and it completely changes the mood to something that looks more like a real competition patch. Stitch count goes from around 7,500 at 3 inches up to 27,000 at 8, that bigger size has alot of filled area to cover.

Use a stabiliser with firm body underneath, the filled black crown and thick circular borders need good backing to sit flat. Hoop cotton duck cloth or canvas without topping, and slow the machine down a few percent on the satin column runs through the crown points. Topping's worth adding on polo shirts and pique fabrics because the filled lettering can sink into the texture without it.