Show captionThings you may need to mend a pair of jeans. Illustration: Emma McGowan Live Better: how to mend The crotch is usually the first area on your denim to show wear and tear, so patch up the problem with a few simple steps Michael Pendlebury Mon 11 Aug 2014 16.25 BST
I know what it’s like to be completely attached to one pair of jeans. But if you wear the same denim day after day, at some point it will wear out and more often than not, it’s the crotch area that’s the first to “blow out”. I restore and repair denim professionally, but here is a quick guide to making an emergency repair at home. Professional repairs last anything from one to five years depending on usage, and – if you get the repair right – your own DIY attempt could be just as successful. You may need:Sewing machineTailor’s chalkThreadA fusible piece of denimScissors Tape measure 1) Firstly, trim any loose white threads at the crotch hole or “blow out” as we denim geeks like to call it. 2) Chalk off the area around the blow out leaving a 2.5cm (1in) border beyond the tear. Measure the area and cut a piece of fusible denim to size. You can buy denim repair kits online for £9.95 and you can choose from a range of weights and colours. 3) Turn your jeans inside out and iron your fusible patch of denim cotton-side down to the affected area. Make sure your iron is hot and full of water and gently steam the patch in place. Move the iron from side to side over the patch for one minute on each side. Allow to cool. Stitching in the crotch area of your jeans. Illustration: Emma McGowan4) With the jeans still inside out, secure the patch by stitching in the outer edges using a sewing machine. Then turn your jeans right-side out and sew over the damaged area to reinforce the repair. Choose a thread as close in colour as possible to the jeans – this is key to a decent, discrete repair. You could hand sew the patch but because denim is thick, a sewing machine makes this repair much easier. 5) Now you can carefully trim off any loose threads from both sides of the patch and give the repair a quick press. Good as new! Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here. The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. {{#ticker}} {{topLeft}} {{bottomLeft}} {{topRight}} {{bottomRight}} {{#goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/goalExceededMarkerPercentage}} {{/ticker}}{{#paragraphs}}{{.}} {{/paragraphs}}{{highlightedText}}{{#choiceCards}}{{/choiceCards}} We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. Look out for a message in your inbox in . If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us. Topics
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In my last post I showed you how to mend a small rip in your jeans (if you missed that post, you can check it out HERE). And today I’m going to go through how I reinforced the back crotch of those same jeans. The back crotch of these jeans was starting to wear thin, so I decided to reinforce this area with a couple patches to take the pressure off the area before it becomes a real problem. If your jeans are wearing in the front crotch as well as the back crotch, you can apply this same method. You’ll just need to add two more patches to the front crotch. Here’s what it looked like before, you can see the back crotch is really starting to wear thin: And here’s the inside after I patched it: I’m so happy with the results I got using this method to patch the crotch of my husband’s jeans! It’s pretty much invisible from the outside: Ok, so let’s get into the tutorial! What you need:*This list contains affiliate links for your DIYing convenience, so I receive a small commission if you buy something through my links. This really helps to support my site so I can keep creating DIY tutorials to help you create your dream wardrobe. Steps:
Instructions:First, turn your jeans inside out and cut two rounded triangular patches that are the right size to fit between the seams of the back crotch (with some overlap onto the seams) and long enough to cover any signs of wear. Line up one of the patches over the seams on one side of the back crotch. Use your sewing machine (you could also hand sew this if you don’t have a sewing machine) to sew the two straight edges to the jeans. Make sure to only sew within the jean’s seams because it will be less visible from the outside and more sturdy. Repeat with the other patch to sew it to the other side of the back crotch of the jeans. Now we’re going to hand sew the outer curved edges of the patches to fully secure them to the jeans. Start by threading a needle with a double thickness of thread. Knot and trim the ends of the thread tails together. Start by pushing the needle up through the seam of the pants at one end of the patch, pushing the knotted thread tails against the outside of the pants. Next, push the needle back down through the patch. You can take a relatively large stitch here; about 1/4 inch. Then push the needle back up from the outside of the jeans. This time take a much smaller stitch; this will make the stitching practically invisible on the outside because the longer stitches are only on the inside. Repeat this process all the way around the outside of the patch, continuing to make small stitches on the outside and longer stitches on the inside. Tie off the thread tails and trim. Now you can repeat this same process to sew the outer edge of the other patch to the jeans. And that’s it! I think next time I would finish all the edges of the patches with a serger or a zigzag stitch before sewing them into the jeans to keep them from unraveling and looking ragged. But for the most part I’m super happy with how this worked out! If you enjoyed this tutorial, I would love for you to sign up for my email newsletter for more sewing and DIY tips and tutorials and to make sure you never miss a new blog post!
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