Does a hand-stitched repair count as Sewing Sunday? In the absence of a larger-scale project (though, did you see Amanda’s gorgeous bag yesterday?), I’m going to make the executive decision that it counts.
On Friday, Glenn messaged me while I was at work that he found a hole in the crotch of his favorite jeans and asked if I could fix them. I’ve never tried to fix jeans before, but I thought it would be interesting to try. Since the hole was long, narrow, and adjacent to a seam, I thought it was a good candidate.
The hole
I looked up how to repair jeans and came up with several different methods, some of them involving iron-on or sewn on patches, some involving a sewing machine, among others. I opted to repair the hole by hand because I didn’t feel like maneuvering my sewing machine in the crotch of a pair of jeans, plus I’ve never machine-sewn denim before. The crotch didn’t seem like the most comfortable place for a patch, so that was out, too.
I started by sewing around the outside of the hole with a blanket stitch. I read that this could help prevent future fraying, much like finishing the raw edges of seams with a zig-zag stitch on a machine. I had to look up how to do the stitch (I have had next to no hand-sewing education), but after looking at a few pictures, it became fairly self-explanatory. It helped that it wasn’t supposed to be decorative, so it didn’t have to look pretty. I held the thread double for extra strength.
Here is the blanket stitching in progress
Finished surrounding the hole with blanket stitch
I then began closing the hole using a blind stitch. As advised in one of the articles I read, I started the stitching about half an inch below the hole and continue about half an inch past the end of the hole.
The blind stitch in progress, before pulling to tighten
I actually really enjoy this stitch. It reminds me of mattress stitch for seaming knitting. With both, I love how pulling on your working thread/yarn zips up the sides. It’s like magic.
The finished repair!
I accidentally broke one of the threads when I was tying it off at the end, but hopefully that won’t be too much of an issue, since I did hold the thread double throughout. I tried to catch the loose thread with the connected thread when I tied that off.
The inside of the new seam. Sorry this is blurry!
The whole process probably took less than an hour, but I didn’t time it. I generally hate hand-sewing, but this was a surprisingly satisfying little project. I don’t know how well it will hold, since the surrounding fabric has been worn pretty thin, but hopefully this will lend a bit more life to these jeans.
