Darning holey jeans

Today I continued working on #1 of my to do list: Mending my boys' jeans. 

Prior to attaching patches to the jeans, I fixed the holes to prevent further fraying. And here's how I do that (this is the way I do it, it might not be the way a professional sewist would do it but it workes for me).

First of all you have to open up the seams. As you can see in the photo below, there is a double-seam and one single seam.

Here's how it looks like when the inside is turned out.

Open up the single seam generously, it will be easier to fit the jeans under your sewing machine's arm when the opening is rather wide.

If neccessary (when both layers are serged together) open the serged seams. That is pretty easy, you'll see :o)

Below you can see a large opening but the seams are still closed at the far right and the far left sides.

Cut some lightweight fusible web to a size that is larger than the hole. 

Turn inside out. Put some (old) cotton fabric between the denim layers to protect your jeans.

Lay out your fusible web on the left side of your holey denim so that the hole is completely covered.

Iron according to manufacturer's specification. 

Take out your (old) cotton fabric.

Turn right side out and trace the patch with a watersoluble pen.

Take your jeans to your sewing machine and insert a jeans/ denim needle.

Stitch forwards and backwards several times to close and secure the hole. Make sure you stay within the marks that indicate the future position of the patch.

This is how it looks like after darning. 

For a rather ragged look you can simply leave it that way and skip the patches entirely :o)

This is a look at the left side. Yeah, I know, the fusible web was a bit large :o)

That's it for today. To be continued tomorrow with how to attach the patches and how to re-assemble the jeans :o)

Karen made some great progress on her list as well, so hop over to her blog and say hello :o) 

Happy Sewing!

Christine