Tuesday, November 27, 2012

patchwork.

Recently I have been unable to wear my favorite pair of jeans, due to huge holes all down the legs. Starting out as a pair of "worn-in" jeans from American Eagle, I have never found a pair of jeans that fit so good since. But those small little holes have progressively grown larger and large in the last few years, thanks to me shoving my feet through them every time I put them on, to a point where they are simply not aceptable in my mind. I toyed around with the idea of getting rid of them, not being into the "worn" look as much these days, but I couldn't let them go. This led to my idea of patching them. I had no idea what type of fabric to use, but eventually I decided on while lace. 

Materials:
-Patching Material (in my case, lace!)
-Fabric Glue
-Sewing Pins
-Needle & Thread or a Sewing Machine

I started by washing my jeans and then turning them inside out. I measured the fabric (a little larger than the hole I was patching) and then put newspaper underneath the hole, just to prevent me from accidentally glueing the sides together. Next I put a thin bead of fabric glue around the hole, as close as I could to the edge. From there I put the fabric down (make sure it is the right way), and made sure it was glued on all sides, and stuck down. I did this for each hole in my jeans, and allowed them to dry over night. Next is where I made my first mistake.

I was so excited to wear my jeans that I thought I wouldn't need to reinforce the patches by sewing them. I put them on and set off to help my brother move, which turned out to be fatal for two of my lovely patches before the day was over. The major problem was the area around the knee, where the fabric is constantly stretched to its maximum. So a tip for everyone, make sure you have enough fabric for the knee area (a fabric with slight a stretch seems like a good idea) and then reinforce patched areas that will take more strain than others with thread (you can do this with a sewing machine, or needle and thread. I opted for needle and thread because my mom wasn't around and I have no idea how to thread a bobbin on our sewing machine..)


If anyone has any tips for patchwork, I would greatly appreciate it! This was my first attempt, so I can use all the advice I can get :)









1 comment:

  1. This is a great idea! I have the same problem, I keep ripping the holes in my jeans with my feet. I'll have to give this a try. What you could that might help the patches stay on a bit better is find some stretchy lace so that it stretches with your knees instead of your knees ripping the lace off. Or some stores have those kinds of jeans with patches in right now, I would go in and see how they did it!

    ReplyDelete