Spring has sprung and so have holes in my gardening pants. So I patched them, well, quite visibly. My family asked me if I would wear them in public. I said, why not?
Regardless of how they look, my mended pants will last for at least one more season in the yard, I kept stuff out of landfill and saved money by not buying a replacement pair. (I’ve been since before boycotting greedy businesses was cool.)
The rips and tears
These were hand-me-up work pants my daughter Charlotte didn’t need anymore. I wore them so much that I blew out the left knee. After I patched that up and tested the pants in the garden鈥攖he patch held perfectly!鈥攖he right leg ripped near the knee.
T-shirt fabric for the repair
Initially, I planned to patch up the pants with a similar twill fabric. A big thank you to Karin Harrison for recommending t-shirt fabric instead, which gives where it needs to鈥攊n the knees. The stretchy fabric worked so well and besides, we have a bottomless drawer of old, ratty t-shirts. Also, the fabric doesn’t fray. So I didn’t bother finishing the edges of the patches.
The patches
I cut large pieces out of the t-shirt, avoiding the holes and stains. Next, I pinned one piece to the first pang leg turned inside out, slid it onto the free arm of my sewing machine and basted the patch on, avoiding the tear in the center.
To sew each patch on, sew forward, then with the needle down in the fabric, raise the pressure foot and angle the fabric slightly and sew backward. Repeat and sew up along the patch in a brute force zigzag pattern.
You may want to match your thread color to your fabric color. I used the color already threaded on the machine.
The leg on the right above had a couple of small tears as well as a large one so I sewed across those back and forth several times to close them up.
In the garden
Above, I’m kneeling on a pad I sewed out of worn jeans and stuffed with small fabric scraps. Go here for more info about that.
A smaller, neater patch
The denim bag I made out of worn jeans and take with me everywhere had developed a few small holes. These small holes take only a few minutes to mend.
For these, I cut a square of denim to cover each small hole and if I want to be fancy, first finish the edges. A serger makes quick work of finishing but a zigzag stitch on a standard sewing machine also does the trick.
Next, place the patch on the inside of the fabric over the hole. Pin it and sew back and forth across the patch in that brute zigzag pattern. I start at the left edge, make my way to the right, and, if the hole is large, go back to the left, covering the patch with stitches. With the needle in the fabric, lift the presser foot, turn 90 degrees and now do the brute zigzag in the opposite direction. See the pictures below.
Thank you for the sewing tips and tricks. That鈥檚 always what we did back before the 60鈥檚 when we were at home on the farm. Everything was repurposed and reused, without a second thought. I was born in the early 50鈥檚.
Not sure when it all changed so drastically growing up, just kinda happened; we were customized to follow along with the trends and thought everything new was so exciting and we liked it.
Fast forward to today where we really see we鈥檝e shorted ourselves, our pockets books and good old Mother Nature and wildlife.
Thank you Ann-Marie for giving us hope and changes forward to better practices and new environmental ways for Mother Earth.