Sewing on patches and jeans re-assembly

Sorry, no progress on my to do list yesterday. We had to pay an emergency visit to the dental surgery. My eldest fell and lost two teeth :o( With examinations, x-rays and lots of consolation, I was completely exhausted last night. 

Luckily, he is one brave boy. Once he discovered that he  now looks like a first grader, he was quite proud (he is only 4 years old) and didn't shed another tear.

Today, I managed to squeeze in some sewing time and finished off my boys' jeans.

And here's how I attached the patches and re-assembled the jeans.

Pin the patch to the jeans. Don't forget to take out the paper templates!!!

Stitch close to the edge all around the patch. Use a denim needle. You may want to use matching thread if you don't want the stitches to show up. I used matching thread in those cases where I embellished the patches (I wanted the ants to take center stage). In the case below, I made a plain denim patch and used contrasting thread to sew it on. If you want a more prominent stitch, consider using a triple straight stitch, it allows the fabric to stretch and is wider that a usual straight stitch.

Pay close attention that this mistake does not happen to you: when sewing trough the patch, I caught a bit of the edge and had to unpick many triple stitches. Huh. 

Turn inside out, line up edges and pin.

Sew along the former inner seam, using a triple straight stitch. It will allow the fabric to stretch and is stronger than a single straight stitch.

Serge the fraying edges (my sewing machine came with a serger foot) or zig zag along the edges.

Turn and admire your work.

This is my work from this week:

As this one already was decorated with prints and applique, I just made a plain denim patch. 

 Here are some ants for my eldest.

Little crowns for my eldest (I should have used an embroidery thread but didn't have a matching one at hand . Oh well.)

And finally some more ants for my younger son. 

Happy Patching!

Christine

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

Embellishing denim patches

This post is part of a To Do Challenge by Karen of Listen to the Birds Sing.

I made some progess on my denim patches. If the holey jeans are rather dull (regular, without prints, etc.) I like to add some interest to the patches. For my boys' jeans I like to add some ants (because I like them and because they are a decorative stitch on my sewing machine... easy peasy...)

To jazz up the jeans a bit more, I added an ant to the other leg as well. Makes it look like it has always been this way :o)

There are surely tons of other ways to brighten up your patches... Glue on some paste or strass, hand stitch some cool stuff, add a small iron-on application, etc. Surely there are other charming stitches on your sewing machine for girls that you may have never used :o)

Give it a try and leave a link to your photo below.

I would love to see what you come up with !

Happy Sewing Patching!

Christine

Making patches for holey jeans

A Challenge

Karen challenged us to finish our to dos sews for this week and she is going to track me down until I'm done with my list :o) So each day I'm going to show you the progress I made...

This is my to sew list for this week:

1. Mend my boys' jeans

2. Turn jeans with toooooo many or tooooo big holes into shorts

3. Finish my Jelly Roll (Race) Quilt that I started in London.

This is my progress on #1

How to make homemade denim patches:

Lay out a pair of holey jeans and cut a sheet of paper to the desired size of the patch.

Glue the paper patch...

on to the left side of a piece of denim that is a bit larger than the paper patch.

Cut the edges but leave a seam allowance of approx. 1/2''

I used the English Paper Piecing Technique Tacha taught us in London and here's how I secured the edges in place: Thread a handstitching needle with some bright contrasting thread (you can use some of your leftovers). Make a knot. Fold over one side of the denim patch to the back. Insert the needle at the corner from the front to the back and pull until you reached the knot.  

Fold over the second side of the denim. Insert needle in the same corner from the back side and pull through.

Take the next corner, repeat. This is how it should look like after you did 3 corners.

And this is how it should look like after you secured all the corners. Now give it a good hot press with your iron.

Next time we are going to embellish the patch (optional)

Happy Sewing!

Christine

To do: mending my boys' jeans

Some rather less exciting sewing...

I procrastinated mending my boys' jeans for some weeks months now but they have more jeans with holes now than without :o) 

Look at that pile of torn jeans... 

Is it Murphy's Law that ALL Pants are torn at the right leg only?!

I started sorting them according to the way I'll use them: Some are going to get patches, others are going to be turned into shorts. I wondered if I should do a little tutorial about how I make my own patches and how I mend the jeans ?! What do you think?! Perhaps a bilingual tutorial this time ?!

I'm going to shoot tons of photos during the process, then let's see when I will have time enough to turn them into a coherend tutorial :o)

Happy sewing!

Christine