My daughter has these jeans that she loves. Our loving dogs jumped up on this brand new pair and put a lovely three corner tear in the leg. The jeans are so skinny that I couldn’t get to them to repair them. I know that holey jeans are the thing, but she doesn’t like holey jeans. So, I had two options: throw them out, or find a way to repair them. I decided to repair them. Here is the process I used to fix her jeans. It is one I learned a long time ago when the boys were little and used to put the knees out on jeans.
Supplies:
a free arm sewing machine,
thread to match or contrast as you choose
pins
scrap piece of denim
scissors
seam ripper
Here is the tear on the outside of her jeans.
There are a bunch of extra threads and I didn’t wash the jeans before repairing. I would if I were patching the whole knee as I did when the boys were small. This tear is little and she has just put them on so they are relatively clean.
Step 1. Turn the jeans inside out. See how skinny these are.
2. Cut the serging on the edges of one side of the jeans. This is the opposite side of the decorative top stitching. You do not want to take out the topstitching. It is a hassle to replace and matching the thread and stitch size can be a real issue.
Here I am sliding the point of these scissors up under the edge of the serger stitching.
3. Cut the straight stitching and take it out as well.
A seam ripper will help you with this.
4. Cut a patch out of a similar weight fabric. It helps that the fabric has been washed and dryed about the same amount as the jeans you are patching. In this case I cut a  square bit about two inches bigger than the tear.
5.Pin the patch in place. Checking on the inside that the patch is smoothly pinned and not wrinkled or wadded.
6. My sewing machine is a free arm machine. Which makes it easier to put the opened up jean leg under the pressure foot. You need to make sure that the patch is smooth under the jean leg.
Using a thread that matches the denim as close as you can get, straight stitch all around the  tear as close as you can get to the actual tear. Use a small stitch length so that it really holds the patch fabric down.
You could use a contrasting thread color if you want to add it as a decorative element.
7. Then using a zig zag stitch. go over the edge of the tear. I chose to use navy thread. 
Yes, you can see the stitching. but the hole is repaired and I think with boots no one will noticed the repair.
Here is the inside showing the patch and the stitching.
(Yes, my bobbin threads are purple.)Trim your threads on the inside and outside of your jeans. Then trim the patch down.
Sew up the leg with the straight stitch in the same place that the other stitching was. You want to back stitch at the start and end and be sure to stitch over the original stitching a bit at the start and at the end so that these stitches are well anchored. You don’t want your jean seams to open up while you are wearing them!
I also added a zig zag stitch on the edge of the jeans to keep them from unravelling.
This is the stitch I used.
Here is the finished product!
Yay, her jeans are repaired and now she has a pair for yard work, without the gaping hole that they would have in short order.
My back is a little better but I am not sewing much these days. I have been crocheting quite a bit and I will show you a few of my new projects in the days to come.
talk to you later,
Karen
