AKICILJ/DW: Patching knees of blue jeans?

[brooksmoses]

I've noticed something, now that I've had a dozen or so years of not outgrowing my blue jeans: They all wear out in the same pattern. There's a diagonal fold that goes out to the left knee, and eventually it wears through and there's a small diagonal hole there, and if I use the jeans at all actively after that, soon thereafter there is a large crosswise rip across the front of the left knee.

This wasn't a problem for a while; my jeans were getting generally worn and faded out of "good clothes" usefulness faster than the knees were ripping through once I started wearing them for "old clothes" uses. But then I started exercising on climbing walls, and that changed very quickly -- I have at least a half-dozen jeans that would be great for climbing except that they've got a big rip across the knee, and a couple of pairs of good jeans that I don't want to subject to abrasive stuccoed walls.

I tried simply sewing up the rips, pinching them together and stitching across the gap. This works for a week or three, but then pretty quickly pulls the crosswise threads out and there's a hole again.

So, those of you with experience in the ways of fabric: What's the right way to repair a large rip in the knee of a pair of jeans? I don't really care about aesthetics, but I do want something that I can use actively and which won't rip out.

Comments

[nitoda]

There's a pretty good video here: http://video.about.com/teenfashion/How-To-Patch-a-Hole-in-Jeans.htm

It shows the knee of a pair of jeans being patched. You can also buy "iron-on patches" - They tend more to the ornate than the practical sometimes.

[seawasp]

The way I've always seen it done is to put an actual large patch, about the size of the whole knee area (say, about the size of your hand) over the knee area.

ETA: usually this doesn't just involve sewing, but some sort of glue underneath the patch. I think there may actually be such patches manufactured specifically for this application.

[brooksmoses]

Ah, okay -- I was just about to ask where you did the stitching. I tried doing one where I stitched around the perimeter of the patch and around the perimeter of the hole as well, but that was a lot of stitching and they're still all at edges of things where they could pull out.

I do remember the iron-on sticky patches from my childhood, now that you mention it! But I didn't entirely remember how effective they were....

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

You might also be able to do a kind of hybrid - if you can find a two-sided sticky with some cloth on the side next to your knee, that might help. I always *hated* the feeling of patch on my skin.

Keep in mind that goal of patching isn't to cover the hole - you're trying to reinforce it and the surrounding fabric. By the time the fabric ripped, it had already lost structural integrity in the area around it, and the rip just represents the final stress. So the patch normally has to be much bigger than the hole (relatively speaking - you're not replacing the entire leg of the pants, but you're not saying "oh, an inch rip, that means I need an inch, plus epsilon, of patch.") (I suspect you have already figured this out - but how often does a guy get an opportunity to geek about fabric?)

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

The ones available now are much better than the ones we had in the '70s. If you really want the belt-and-braces approach, you can sew around the edges to give it a bit more strength.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Yup, they sell iron-on jeans patches that come in denim color. You can sometimes even find them in faded-denim color so they come closer to matching.

I rarely bother patching jeans anymore because usually by the time mine rip they've lost structural integrity all over and they just rip next to the patch no matter how big I make it.

[rosefox]

This was my suggestion too.

https://www.google.com/search?q=iron-on+denim+patches&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=iron-on+denim+patches&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=yGJ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=WXV_T7ziFpOO8wT_8_HVBw&ved=0CHkQrQQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=c237d39125bf7853&biw=1280&bih=670

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Ask me next time you see me. The trick is to patch BOTH sides of the hole and sew the patches together to reinforce the jeans. Easier to show than to write.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

This. I'm doing a repair like this on a fitted bedsheet using Stitch-Witchery iron-on fusible interfacing and some scrap fabric of the same weight as the sheet.

[snippy]

The jeans for small children can be purchased pre-reinforced, with a denim patch on the inside of the legs at each knee. In future you could do that.

[kitryan.livejournal.com]

If you have a sewing machine, a good way to do a single layer patch is to zigzag stitch all around and inside the area of the patch. This keeps the whole area reinforced and joined without the need for iron on or glue, which imo, wears off quickly and isn't as durable because of the plasticy/brittle nature of adhesives compared to thread/fabric. Also, as others have stated, the patch needs to cover the entire stressed/worn area and extend beyond it.