I have some boys that are pretty adept at putting holes in the knees of their pants. Well to be honest I can do it pretty well myself. Anyway that means I have a fair amount of patching to do. A lot of times the jeans are in pretty good shape except for the knee holes. As I like to make things last as long as possible patching is definitely my choice of action to take.
Normally with patching I would just take a piece of denim, from a sacrifice pair of jeans, that was bigger than the hole and I would stick it in the inside of the leg underneath the hole, pin it in place and then zig zag around the edges of the hole. That worked but it didn't look that great (the pants automatically became everyday pants) and they very easily got a hole again, just above or below the patch.
After the boys got some new pants that came with doubled knees (they looked like they had big square patches already) I decided that I maybe should try patching that way. It is a more durable patch as it covers more of the leg and it also looks nice enough that they can still wear them places other than at home.
To do it I cut big rectangles from some other old jeans, turned under the edges and then pinned them in place. Next came the time of wrestling them around on my sewing machine, double sewing down each side. They sewing is a challenge but I was quite happy with the finished results! And really... It didn't take that long. The time was certainly worth a pair of decent jeans for my boys.
Jonathan thinks they are as good as new!
I am linking this to
Fix it up Friday over at Blessings Overflowing.
4 comments:
Those look great! Sewing is something I really should learn to do. Repairing clothes and altering clothes seems kind of fun!
The pants look really good. I think it would be tricky to sew them on, but you did a great job. My boys are so hard on pants, too. Thanks for linking up!
Love the idea! This tute will come in handy for a couple of my husbands jeans. If only that was where holes primarily appear in my family. We tend to back into sharp things and pull away leaving awkwardly placed holes.
This patch looks good for younger boys. To make the sewing easier, open up the "easy" seam (the one without topstitching) so you have a flat surface to work with. After stitching the patch, turn the jeans inside out and complete the seam. You can serge the raw edges or zigzag if you don't have a serger. I have an alteration shop and find that older boys like the look of the inside patch with some threads showing. Aleda
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