…I seem to remember all the boys,and some of the girls, having patches on their trousers back in the day. But I can’t remember the last time I saw a little boy running around with patched knees on his trousers. Is it something that is now lost in the mists of time, along with Kia-Ora, paper straws, and white dog poo….?
Well, now BigSmall is going to be proudly sporting a patch on his knee!
And this is how I did it…
Just in case you can’t imagine what a Small person’s pair of jeans with a hole in them might look like, this is the offending hole. A result of too much racing cars/trains around the floor I fear.
\A close up
This is what I thought I might need:
- an old pair of my jeans (with a hole in the knee-kind of ironic..)
- some bondaweb
- I was going to use some material to sew a picture on top of the patch, but once it was done I decided against this, so ignore the patterned fabric
- scissors
- a sewing machine (not pictured)
I roughly measured the size of the hole (when I say roughly, I mean roughly, ie finger widths..!), and then neatly cut a patch of denim from the leg of my old jeans of the appropriate size. I then cut a patch of bondaweb the same size and ironed it onto the wrong side of my denim patch. There is a paper backing on the back of the bondaweb, I removed this, and then lined my patch up carefully over the hole (I made sure that the ‘grain’/liney bit of the denim was facing in the same direction, but this doesn’t really matter too much) and ironed it on.
I don’t think that bondaweb on it’s own is strong enough to withstand machine washing/little picky fingers, so I then machined around the edge. This bit was a bit tricky, mainly from an access point of view, and in hindsight it may have been easier to hand sew or blanket stitch around the edge but I have very little confidence in the durability of my hand stitching so I went with the machine (and swore a few times). I will try and describe what happened. I took the platformy bit (can’t remember what it’s called, sorry) off my machine to leave me with just the little stumpy bit at the end, which I then threaded the leg of the newly patched jeans over (I really should have taken more pictures-I’m sure this is making no sense). I could then sew through just the patch and the jeans and not end up sewing the leg of the jeans shut! It was easy to do this along two sides, BUT next to impossible to do it along the edges that were at right angles to the length of the leg as I couldn’t turn the leg of the jeans to get it lined up with the sewing machine’s foot. I cursed and swore and tugged and pulled, and eventually managed it, but I’m not sure this is a recognised bona fide method of patching. So maybe don’t copy it.
But it worked!
I’m quite chuffed with this. I went with a contrasting thread colour on purpose because the patch is kind of obvious, so I thought I might as well make a feature of it.
Now I’m just hoping BigSmall is not going to get drummed out of the playground for being the only Small person with a patch on their trousers…
My Make Do and Mend Year 
Brilliant, I’m not the only mum fed up of worn out knees in, otherwise perfectly good, trousers. I started patching my 4 year old sons trousers this summer in contrasting fabric. It’s obvious I’ve patched them so why not make it a feature!
Oh I’m so glad I’m not the only one! I was slightly concerned he was going to get picked on…! It’s quite satisfying doing it though!
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