Today’s tutorial will teach you how to patch your jeans. My dear daughter and our dogs managed to put a 3 corner hole in her never been worn before skinny jeans. A 3 corner hole looks a lot like the letter L. 

She is not into the ragged look and I was not thrilled with the thought of her needing a new pair of jeans immediately after buying these.  I thought that I would take this opportunity to write this tutorial. There is a trick to it and it isn’t hard.

Some facts about this hole.

It is on the side of her calf and is not at a stress point.  This method works great on hole around or below the knee. I wouldn’t try it  on really old jeans. You do want the patch to be from denim about the same age as what you are sewing on and about the same fiber content. Be careful not to stretch the denim when you are sewing that can make the patch area pucker.

There are several things you need to have before you get started.

Supplies:

• A Sewing machine that sews through multiple thicknesses of denim and that does a zig zag stitch or the stitch shown below.  A serger would simplify the sewing at the end of the repair. A free arm sewing machine will make it easier but it isn’t necessary.

• seam ripper or small pointy scissors
• thread to match all stitching and also the denim color on the outside. There is a thread color called denim. It does work but in this case I just used navy thread I had on hand.
• Piece of fabric 3 x’s the size of the hole and about the same weight and age. I generally keep one pair of old jeans around to do this repair with.
• sewing scissors, because your kid’s paper scissors aren’t going to cut the denim.
• Pins

Here are the jeans with the hole repaired. It isn’t beautiful but they do look much better.

Here is the hole before we fixed them. You do want to repair them before you wash them. Unless they are truly nasty dirty. Washing them will fray the edges and make the patch more visible.

Turn the jeans leg inside out with the hole side showing.

 

Take your seam ripper or very fine tip embroidery scissors and cut the threads just about 4 inches on either side of the hole. Being sure to cut the side that does not have top stitching which is that fancy white stitching on the outside. Be very careful that you don’t cut the jeans as you are doing this.

So you have cut the overcast or serger stitching on the edge of the jean seam. Then you also want to cut the chain stitch beside it and take it out. It looks like a crochet chain.

Here is my patch. It is larger on all sides than the tear in her jeans. Turn the jeans right side out again and pin the patch so that it covers all of the hole. Put the patch with the right side facing out.

Since you cut the leg open it is easy to see what you are doing at this point. You will want to check both sides to make sure that the patch is centered over the hole. There should be extra fabric all around the hole.

My sewing machine has a free arm so that I can sew small things. This is perfect for doing this repair. If you don’t have a free arm sewing machine you can just create a larger opening in the seam so that you can sew all around the patch easily.

Pull the leg with the patch over the free arm and center the hole under your needle.

Using the straight stitch sew around the hole as close to the edges of the tear as you can get.  This will help hold the patch when we use the zig zag stitch.

Here I am using the zig zag stitch over the edges of the tear. The stitch size is as small as I can get and still see that I am stitching over the edge of the tear. I also back stitched instead of tieing a knot.

Here is the stitching after I finished the sewing.

Here is the inside. Now with your sharp scissors carefully cut the left over patch fabric away. It should look like this.

No heavy patch to rub. Yay!! We are done sewing the patch on. Now we just have to sew the leg back up. Turn the leg inside out again.

Pin the edges being sure that you don’t stretch the jean out and sew the straight seam. Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end of your sewing to anchor it. Also sew down into the uncut stitching at the top and bottom of the hole you made. If you have a serger then at this point you would simply sew the overcast and straight stitch and be done. You will want to be careful to tie off all threads and trim them so that the sewing doesn’t ravel.

Now use the stitch that looks like a straight stitch and a zig zag combined. and do the overcast stitching on the edge of the seam. This will keep your jeans from ravelling. You can just use a straight stitch and a zig zag stitch if you machine doesn’t do this stitch. Just be sure that one edge of the zig zag is over that second straight stitch.

This patching method won’t work so well on holes in the seat of your jeans but it has stood the test of time. We have washed and dried these jeans every week for months and it is holding up great. You can hardly see the patch as she usually wears her boots with this pair.

I hope this helps you out! Let me know if you patch any jeans.

Talk to you later,

Karen