Resurrecting holey jeans

The other day, I went to put on my favourite jeans, and found a hole in the inner thigh, as well as a couple of thin patches that would likely turn into holes with a couple more washes!  Oh no :(  A few years ago, I would have sighed, and started planning to buy a new pair.  Maybe I would have chucked the old pair aside to use for denim scraps.  I once tried to patch a pair of holey jeans & it didn't work very well, and kept pinching my skin.  No fun at all.

I've got a bit braver since then.  So, I decided I'd have a go at patching them.

What I didn't do, was take some 'before' photos.  Sorry!  I've only got after shots for you.

The first pair, were my holey-thigh jeans.  I did a very basic patch job on them.  Iron on some interfacing on the inside, and satin-stitch all over the holes.  The holes weren't huge, nor very visible, so I figured this would fix them sufficiently.   This tutorial does things in a fairly similar way, except that I didn't use an extra piece of fabric over the top of the interfacing.

It's not very pretty, but you can't actually see it when I'm wearing them!

The second pair, I found in my stash of fabric - obviously ones I had put away years ago after they had developed a hole over the pocket area.  I initially patched them the same way as the first pair.  But as the patch was a lot more visible, being right on the front over the pocket, I wanted to pretty it up a bit.  So I cut a circle out of some nice corduroy, and satin-stitched it over the top.  Cute, eh?

The THIRD pair were badly damaged when I tripped over on bitumen & ripped both knees open.  I remember this particular as I was walking to the park when S was a toddler, wearing her on my front in the mei tai, and I didn't see this big chunk of bitumen lying loose on the road.  I went over forwards, and thankfully managed to put my hands out to break my fall and prevent S' head from smacking on the road!  It was very frightening.  Again, I didn't even know I'd kept them - the things you find!  I used this tutorial as the base for my patching job.  I had some more nice corduroy, but was worried that on its own, it would not be strong enough.  So I cut two patches for each knee - one denim, one cord, and used the tute at the above link with the patches layered together for strength.

I'm so pleased with the results!  I've gone from one pair of jeans (as of the other day) to now having four, and I'd much rather have spent a few hours learning some new techniques, than spend the amount of money I would have needed to, to replace the holey ones I already had!  Can't wait to wear them!