So far this year, I have already patched 4 pairs of jeans.
I sometimes feel as if my life is turning into an episode of The Good Life (how cool would that be?!)
Being avid and dedicated readers, you will all remember my first foray into patching with BigSmall’s jeans. I was feeling very smug about this mend, until I had to re-do it as my first attempt was basically a bit rubbish! THEN, another hole appeared right beneath my patch-the cheek of it! So I had to unpick my by now very firmly sewed on patch, and sew on the mother of all patches…
All was well for a little while, and then the ‘cool’ distressed bit on my jeans started to get more distressed, and then became an actual hole and then I put my foot through it-DOH!
So I had to patch them.
And then I had a second pair do the very same thing.
And then hubby obviously decided he was feeling left out, so he joined in with his jeans!
I put out a plea to the Love What you Wearers for a tutorial on patching, and the lovely Ginny promptly whipped me one up and posted it on her gorgeous blog Sweet Myrtle.
I followed Ginny’s tutorial, and thought I would share with you what I did and the lessons I have learned!! But if you want to really know how to patch something, check out the original post from Ginny-she is waaaaay better than me!
This is the starting point:
I trimmed off the straggly bits, and then cut a patching piece from another old pair of jeans kept specifically for this purpose!
With the jeans turned inside out I pinned the ‘new’ piece in place. The key to this, as Ginny says in her fab tutorial is to keep the new piece as flat as possible to avoid it rucking up.
Then, (carefully avoiding the pins…) I turned them right way round again, took the platformy bit off my sewing machine and threaded the leg of the jeans onto the arm bit (apologies if I am blinding you with technical terms…)
I had to change the sewing foot (is that even the right word?) too *gasp* for the embroidery one. I am sure you are all WAY more knowledgable than me about sewing, but just in case you aren’t, it is the one that looks like this:
Then I just sewed my merry way backwards and forwards in lines across the patch. With the embroidery foot you can keep the jeans in the same orientation and move the fabric forwards/backwards/sideways/any which way you choose, which makes things much easier. NOTE-make sure that the fabric of your jeans doesn’t get pulled over at the edges as the sewing foot goes over it. I think, actually, with the embroidery foot, you can do it without lowering the foot, which would avoid this issue. Can someone confirm this?!
Now, Ginny’s patching was FAR FAR better than mine, and pretty much invisible. If you can match up your fabric and thread just right, then you should be able to get a pretty much invisible patch.
Mine is not invisible.
Or even close…
And this is the view from the inside, after trimming away the excess fabric:
In hindsight, had I appreciated the size of the defect I was working with, what I should have done is used a contrasting/pretty fabric underneath, and really made a statement of it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing…
The lovely hubby’s jeans had a smaller rip to start with:
And ended up looking like this:
Again, nowhere near invisible, but at least functional. I hope..!
Talking about the Good Life, did you hear the sad news that Richard Briers passed away last night? That programme inspired and keeps on inspiring so many people!
Kim
Kim Roper 0778 653 8632
Oh no, that is sad news. I hadn’t heard that. As you say, inspiring stuff 🙂
The patches look good… But a contrast would have had verve! I applaud your fortitude. (and the Good Life was always one of my faves!)
A contrasting patch would have been sooo much better! I need to engage my brain before I start mending 🙂 We should all endeavour to live a little bit of The Good Life…
Aha! I have some jeans that I wear for the garden that are getting pretty much indecent now with the amount of holes… Might have an experiment! I’ve darned woolly things before, and put patches on TOP of holes, but this kind of looks like a combination of both!
Give it a go! You could patch underneath and then woolly darn on top-that would look pretty cool!
Have you ever tried the “Whole-Knee Patch”? I read about it in the Tightwad Gazette, and it is the only way I patch pants now. People don’t even notice it’s a patch – looks like those pants that come with a double knee – and it never tears away unless I make it too small to start with.
Oooh, sounds great-will google it! Thankyou 🙂
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