How to repair jeans

I do not understand why someone would buy jeans with holes in them.  Now I am really showing my age.  But having said that, here is an easy way to mend holes when the client wants to keep the frayed.

This clients jeans had one big hole in the knee area, a smaller hole above that and two holes on the left leg.  When doing clothing alterations, always save off cuts.  I have a plastic container with all different color denim, both stretch and non stretch.

Unpick the outside leg seam.  Or the seam without the top stitching.  In this case it was the outside seam.  You are better off opening the seam enough that patching is easy rather than trying to do it from the top or bottom of the jeans.

The patch needs to be about 2.5 cm (1 in) bigger than the hole.  Keep in mind that you are best to cut the patch bigger than not big enough.  Use pinking shears, rather than overlocking the edge.  Pinking shears keeps it neat and also does not show an outline.

Pin to the underside of the hole.  Set the stitch to outline stretch stitch.  I went for a maximum width and a maximum length.

The first stitch should be around the very edge of the hole.  Moving the white frayed section out of the way as you sew.  Trim the patch with the pinking shears and do a second row of stitching with the outline stretch stitch on the very edge of the pinking shears outline.

Pin the sides, and to ensure that no one will ever know they have been unpicked, line up the pins on both sides, so that you will be stitching into the ORIGINAL stitch line on both panels.  See the last photo for my example.

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