Mending Jeans

My cousin asked me today if people still really do this, well, yes, I still do.

My hubby regularly rips holes in knees and so do my four boys.  Buying new jeans is just not an option for us. I have even been known to pick some up at the thrift store and repair them as well.  Boys size 10-12 jeans are hard to come by so I'll take what I can get.

 

Here's a little tutorial on how I accomplish this task without the use of those yucky iron-on patches.

First of all, I keep any lower pant legs that I cut off from making denim shorts out of the "too-bad-to-mend" pairs. 

This is my "patch" material.

Step one: Open up the leg seam about 8 inches past the seam on both sides.  Give yourself plenty of room to get into the leg area.

Step two: Cut your patch about 1-2 inches bigger than the size of the hole. Make it a nice square or rectangle in proportion with the hole.

Step three: Turn your pant leg inside out and stick a large ruler inside or a piece of heavy cardboard so you have a surface to pin against. Placing the right side of the patch to the wrong side of the pant leg, pin the patch in place.  Be careful, don't prick yourself, and now turn the pant leg right side out.

Step four: Using a wide zig-zag, stitch the patch down reaching underneath and removing pins as you come to them.  Stay about 1 inch away from the hole and feeling with your fingers to be sure you are still on the patch as you sew. You should have plenty of room with that leg seam opened.

 

Step five: Now, clip diagonally into the corners of the pant leg and carefully trim away just the frayed edges.  Turn this flap under and top stitch zig-zag over this edge holding it into place.

This shows me rounding the fourth edge and stitching all those edges down.

Step six: turn the pant leg wrong side out and carefully trim away the edges of the patch, being careful to only trim the patch and not the pant leg.

Finally, step seven: close the pant leg seam.  I zig-zag the edge mimicking the serged factory edge and then I use a straight stitch  on top of the former stitching line.

The finished patch!

These jeans have a lot of life in them still and I may be able to pass them on to the next two kids too!