Sew: Mend Your Jeans {Fixing a hole in the thigh/butt or anywhere!}

If you followed my Me Made May posts, you’ll know just how much I love my high waist skinny jeans! You can imagine my anguish when they tore this recently. I would have loved to fix them this way but the denim in that are had just worn too thin. I think that’s one of the down sides to stretch denim. As I searched the internet for a replacement pair of jeans, Mr Ask commented on the flimsiness of my jeans and that they had only lasted me a year. I had to laugh when two days later he showed me an almost identical rip that had appeared in his jeans! Yep, we both lost our only jeans in the same week. Isn’t life funny like that? Anyway, I kept my torn pair to unpick to make a pattern and bought a new pair with the assistance of Mummy Ask. I think they are spunky and of course high waisted! Anyway, the point is, I did fix Mr Asks jeans and I’ll show you how!

Start out by cutting a piece of heavy weight fusible interfacing that’s at least 2cm bigger on all sides than the hole or weak area. I had an iron on mending patch that I’ve had in my stash since I started sewing, so I used that. You can often find these in the supermarket, which makes them handy in a pinch. Iron the patch or interfacing on to the inside of the pants, according to the directions and being sure to keep everything the right shape.

Time to think about thread colour. This kind of patch will always show to some degree but thread choice can make it blend better. Some people swear by doing some stitching in blue and some in white. I went with pale grey colour. When I first got my overlocker, I hated to change threads and I discovered that a pale grey or taupe goes with everything and isn’t too noticeable. Now I use grey when I don’t have a great thread match or in situations like this where the colour is variegated. The pic below shows the up/down sewing completed but not the side to side.

Once your machine is threaded, sew all over the area your are patching. Depending on the size of the jeans you’re mending and the location of the problem area, it may take a little adjusting to get the right spot under your presser foot. Sew with a straight stitch and ‘scribble’ up and down and side to side. The pic above shows just the up & down. Once that’s all done, sew around the perimeter of the patch. If you don’t, you may find the patch becomes unstuck around the edges after washing and that’s just uncomfortable!

Sew: Mend Your Jeans {Fixing a hole in the thigh/butt or anywhere!}

And that’s all there is to it! Your jeans are fixed and ready to fight another day. I’m so sad that fabric failure prevented me from fixing my jeans but at least I could fix Mr Asks. I think it’s wonderful to rescue a beloved pair of jeans and to continue to wear them. I hope this tutorial can help you rescue some jeans in your wardrobe. You hold on to holey jeans too, right?

UPDATE: I just used this technique to mend some heavy duty work pants and the post has some updated info and a little video of me at work, check it out!