#mending jeans

[im-da-bronx]

I’m so genuinely frustrated

I have a pair of jeans that I’m trying to fix, but they just keep ripping.

I finally figured out how to repair them while maintaining the stretch in the fabric, and as I was putting my embroidery hoop on to start fixing them, I ripped ANOTHER HOLE.

And this is after I patched the other leg, and immediately ripped a new hole underneath the new patch

What do I do? Do I continue to patch these pants? Or is it time to give up and buy a new pair?

Here’s a pic of the first patch I did, and the rip that formed underneath

[janerhoadesart]

Itty bitty sashiko patch 💕

Also, a note: I offer a visible mending service for your clothing. Contact me for details or check out my website for prices! I can patch holes in just about any garment and make it look CUTE.

[babajeza]

Reparieren macht Freude – A Sunday Afternoon Later

Hier siehst du Flickmaterial aus meinem Fundus, das einmal mehr gute Dienste leistet. Trotzdem habe ich den roten Rest nicht verwendet, um zwei Paar Hosen eines Freundes zu reparieren. Diese Anzahl macht noch Freude. It took me a few leftover fabrics (from old jeans), pins, a pair of scisors and of cours my sewing machine to mend two pairs of jeans from a friend. I’m thankful for my skills and…

[swallowsummer]

I love how sashiko patterns grow.

Before, I’ve patched on the inside, but with jeans I’ve found that they can become a little too tight after multiple patches. Besides, I really like how the fraying edge of the patch adds to the effect.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[mendelmakes]

Mending a rather obvious rip in the butt of my dad's jeans, so I'm embroidering a dad joke on the pocket to make ironic

[things-from-strings]

🌾🌾🌾

[cat-mermaid]

did some new stuff to this pair the other day, probably won't do much more since I'm pretty happy with them

[a-strawberry-mouse]

That's 4 shades of yellow!

The closer the stitches, the more damaged the fabric. The farther apart the stitches, the less damaged the fabric.

Pleasant, pleasant to look at!

Heck, once I'm done I may casually add stitches to this as a slow stitching project.

Jeans guy asked if I would make this a Theseus ship.

Honestly?

That is a goal for me. To repair things so much that there's little to nothing left of the original. Making it both the old object and an entirely new object! I'm pretty happy that my vibes match my goals.

[aropride]

i do not trust people who shop at shein i'm sorry like there's no excuse for it. i can understand amazon, i can understand a lot of fast fashion, but shein is uniquely awful. and their clothes fall apart in a week so you can't even keep them and mend them. "but i'm poor" okay and you don't need to buy from shein about it. "they sell shirts for $3" so does michael's check ur local craft store and make a design urself if u want. you cannot seriously tell me that you had no other option other than shein

[rumade]

Another jeans repair, this one for my husband's jeans. If I was doing it again, I would zigzag round the edges of the patches separately before attaching as the zigzag on the jeans is quite strong. My husband said he liked it though- I think the symmetry helps.

Reminder than cotton is one of the most water and agricultural chemical hungry crops on the planet, and producing a single pair of jeans takes nearly 8000 litres of fresh water, plus a lot of human labour. So every little bit helps.

[milkweedman]

hello! need help learning how to do a thing and it's your area of expertise so im squirrelling into your ask box (dad joke, sorry.) ANYWAY

i have a lot of jeans that i really really like. however, my most worn jeans tend to, uh. rip in the seat after some time. either near the ass, or at the crotch. this is super irritating, and i don't like tossing the jeans just because of that but i have no idea how to fix them or what to do about this.

i vaguely remember you posting on here about jeans wear and tear as well. sorry if im asking you something that you have already answered, but just wanted to know - what's a good way of mending jeans ripped in the crotch area?

better yet, how do i reinforce my jeans that are showing the warning signs of ripping at the crotch?

My jeans literally just ripped a couple days ago and ive been wearing sweatpants to work out if laziness, so you have good timing 🐿

There might be many ways to do this (and there's definitely NEATER ways to do this) but here's how I fix mine:

They just sort of wore right through. Luckily I was able to catch it before they started ripping too. The sooner you catch a hole the better--and noticing before it rips is best.

You will need a sewing needle (for jeans I like the shortest sharpest needle with a small eye but use whatever needle is comfortable), scissors, a strip of scrap fabric, and some thread. Ideally thread in the same color as your jeans, but I'm using one that will stand out so you can see the repair. Also, nobody will see this later so it doesn't really matter. Pins will also help keep things neat but aren't strictly necessary.

The strip of fabric should be big enough to cover the entire area that wears out, doubled over, on this leg. You can of course just patch the hole, but then you'll grow a new hole a centimeter to the left, so its less work to just do this now.

For preventative measures (sewing a patch on before there is a hole) the process is exactly the same. Just patch the area you know will wear out.

Step 1: turn the pants inside out. fold your patch and pin it in place. We want a doubled patch because a single layer might wear through as well. If you don't have pins, you can use a spare needle or just set it over the repair site.

Like so. If you want these to look nice, keep everything neat and straight. I just want these mended and don't care how it looks one iota, so mine will be messy.

Step 2: thread your needle with doubled thread. A single thread can and probably will wear through here.

Step 3: put your non dominant hand down the leg you're fixing. Your hand should be under the patch supporting while you sew. If you have an embroidery hoop or something leg-sized to put there to hold things taut, that's even better.

Step 4: start sewing the patch down. First we just want to secure it before we do any reinforcing. You could use any stitch here ( whipstitch would probably be good, backstitch is good as well) but I just use a simple running stitch. Go around the entire patch, removing pins if present as you go. Keep your stitches loose here, or at least not tight.

Step 5: reinforcing ! This part can be done on either side, and the front is going to look way neater than the back. If this is in matching thread I'd go ahead and work on the inside because the messy outside won't be seen. If it's contrasting thread you may want to work on the outside, so that at least you have a good pattern. I don't care either way, so I'll work on the inside as it's a little easier. Like I said, this repair really won't be seen when wearing the pants, so the aesthetics aren't very important imo.

To reinforce, I will stitch plus signs/x's over the entire patch. You can do them one at a time or sew all the horizontal lines, then sew vertically to intersect. It's up to you, I like doing them one at a time though.

Yes, they're very bad. Yes this will still extend the life of these pants several months at least. Yes it would be even more effective if I took the time to be neater.

On top on the right image is the patch I did on the other side when they started shredding 5 or 6 months ago. The fabric on the front is only just now starting to fail again, so they will need another round of mending. I will probably extend the patch down the leg a little but mostly just sew more. When you add a layer of thread over fabric, now you have to wear through all of the thread before you start wearing down the fabric again. That's largely how these patches work.

A much much neater and more aesthetic form of this basic idea is sashiko sewing. It's a great way to mend things like jeans (I just don't care about my jeans being anything other than usable so I save my effort and creativity for where I will enjoy it).

Here's the front. I highly doubt anyone will ever see the yellow but I sharpied it black (can also do blue on most shades of blue jeans) and now it stands out less.

One last thing--if, when you look at the front again, you see there are some damaged areas standing proud, sew over those until they have compacted back down and are smooth again. This is important--whatever stands the highest will wear first. So your repairs should be sitting on top, standing higher than the damaged fabric. Otherwise this is all for naught.

Some tips:

A canvas fabric is better. Go for something thick and with some weight to it if you can--immobilizing the repair site will also help some with how long the repair will last.

Similarly colored thread will render this almost invisible. Almost invisible means hard to work on... so make sure your patch is a different color so you're not mending like black thread on black fabric. Save your eyes.

Smaller stitches are better if you have the time/coordination. Large stitches can snag in the wash and also aren't as effective here.

That said, chicken scratch looking garbage will absolutely still make your pants wearable again, as you can see.

If the physical act of moving the needle is going terribly, it's because it's the wrong needle for the job. For jeans, you want a short needle as thin as possible with a small eye. I switched halfway thru this mend because I found a better needle and it was way easier after that.

That's all I got, good luck with your pants ! I usually can double or triple my jeans life this way

[cheftulips]

When I visited Kyoto in April, I made sure to stop by the textile supply stores to bulk up on sashiko thread and needles. Whenever I sew or crochet I think about my grandma and how I need to save all my money to go see her. (*´ー｀*)

I miss you かずこちゃん　❤️

[dieleerezwischendensternen]

started with fixing my favourite jacket.

[rhysintherain]

Almost done fixing the jeans they cut up at the ER last summer.

All told, it'll be about 36 square inches stitched over. There's a strip of navy blue 11-count aida backing it for structure. Using 2 strands of bright green and 1 strand of dark green for the color

Once this is done, I have a couple hoodies to do: my tsunami warning hoodie that Pixie chewed on is getting blue Wave patterns along the cuffs and hem in a couple places. My red Burton hoodie is getting orange and yellow flames around the worn out cuffs.