silk? satin? maybe a little padding?

a skull and crossbones?
(sorry, couldn't resist)

bedazzled/sequined parrot or skull? ; >

Satin ribbon and elastic. A really good one takes fitting and uses a small amount of elastic. The elastic can get caught in your hair, which is a hassle. I suppose you could make a satin tube to cover the elastic.

I liked Ellie Driver's eyepatch when she was masquerading as a nurse in KB1, but only because it was so over the top.

I vote against a design that would make people fix on the patch when talking to your friend. I'm blind in one eye (fovea's kerflooey) and it wanders around a bit. Occasionally people will fix on it and it makes them uncomfortable.

this is a professor i had at unc. he went for a classic style with his.

See, the classic style's where it's at. I want a pre-made one because one made from scratch probably won't be as comfy.

warbaby, did you ever wear a patch? are there some that are more comfortable than others?

I'm looking to give my friend a classic one and an over the top one for when she feels that discomfiting the folks around her is in order.

paint an eye on it.

Hmmm... in Chinatown here, they sell little padded purses made of silk with pretty Chinese embroidery. I'd probably rip one of those apart and re-fashion it. Decent elastic shouldn't pull her hair, or you could use ribbon to tie in the back. The little purses are cheap and come in a lot of colors, and the embroidery's nice- silver leaves and such (look around Pearlriver.com). I think you have a really great idea in mind, small_ruminant.

paint an eye on it.

Or a mini-earth. Or an 8-ball.

I kinda like the plain black one, though, myself.

I've never worn an eye patch except at Halloween. When I was a kid, I wore glasses with one lens frosted or taped over my good eye. That was before they knew what was the root cause of my blind eye. And I did eye exercises. None of it worked in the slightest.

But my Dad wore a patch for a while after he had a stroke on his optic nerve. But he just wore one from the drugstore and after a while he quit wearing it because it didn't really fit very well. The elastic was too narrow, IMO.

I think it was the George MacDonald Fraser version of The Three Musketeers where Christopher Lee has a pretty cool eyepatch. And of course, there are all those animes with the "guy with the eyepatch." And the mad scientist in Repo Man with the black lens on one side. If my eye gets worse, I may go that route.

I know one person who wears an eye patch, but he's an evil bastard and I'm doing my best to send him to jail for a couple of years. So I can't exactly have a friendly chat with him about his eye patch.

I like puddinghead's idea of embroidered silk.

I'd suggest getting an over-the-counter one from the drugstore and use it as the base for improvement.

And this would be really cool for formal occasions. The keywords "blue marble" will get a lot more.

The trick is it has to stay in place, fit evenly around the eyesocket, not get sweaty underneath and ride lightly.

Revenge of the Musketeers (which, along with http://imdb.com/title/tt0118756/ are two of the best swashbucklers available. Both show the girls can do it, too) has a classic silk kerchief as eye patch.

Oooh, I screwed up the link to On Guard!