DIY jeans mending - save money by repairing rips and tears yourself

By Victoria Stiegel on October 17, 2012

Like many college students, I wear jeans pretty much every day. As a poor college student, I can only afford to have so many pairs of jeans at once, so everyday wear leads to holes appearing with sometimes depressing speed. Jeans are not the cheapest item of clothing to buy, but depending on the location of the hole, they’re not always the easiest to mend either. For example, most of the holes in my jeans end up being in the inner thigh, where any of my attempts at mending with simple iron-on patches quickly proved ineffective.

I don’t like to give up easily, though, and I’m reasonably capable when it comes to simple clothing repair, so I persevered in my quest to figure out how to make my jeans last a little longer. After a round of googling, I found several examples of a method that sounded extremely promising. So last night I collected a few pairs of holey jeans I still had lying around and got to work.

Now, this method does require a sewing machine if you want to do it exactly as described, although I think it could be duplicated using hand sewing. It’d take a lot longer, but I think it could reasonably be done. Still, with a sewing machine it’s super-easy and a lot more durable. A sewing machine is probably something most college students don’t have, at least not when they’re still living in the dorms. But if you ask around, you can probably find someone who either has one or has relatively easy access to one, especially if you have friends who are living at home.

Mending jeans

Pinning the patch to the inside of the jeans. (Photo by Victoria Stiegel)

Start by turning your jeans inside out and cutting yourself a piece of scrap denim (I used a pair of jeans that no longer fits) or fabric interfacing (you can buy this by the yard at craft or fabric stores). Either option will work equally well. Your patch should be at least an inch or so larger than the hole in each direction. If there is a large area of fabric that is starting to wear thin, you may want to just cut a large patch that will cover the entire area. Don’t hem the patch or anything, as that would lead to uncomfortable lumps.

Pin the patch to the inside of the jeans. Note that it doesn’t matter if the color of the patch matches the color of the jeans you’re patching. Be careful not to pin the leg of your jeans closed. You can help avoid that by sliding a book in between the two layers. The book will also help you keep everything flat as you pin.

If you’re using interfacing, you can iron it on instead of pinning.

Double-check to make sure that all the holes and fraying areas are covered.

Patch sewn onto jeans

The patch after being sewn on. (Photo by Victoria Stiegel)

Sew around the edge of the patch, being careful not to sew the leg of the jeans closed. If you’re using a sewing machine, you may want to go relatively slowly. Be careful when you turn corners, and take the time to wrangle the legs and waistband of the jeans around and out of the way. Even if you used iron-on interfacing, you’ll probably still want to sew around the edges, as they might pull up in the wash later.

Keep in mind that the thread will be visible on the outside, so if you care about the colors matching, try to choose a thread whose color approximates the color of your jeans.

Remove any pins left (if you don’t take them out as you sew) and turn your jeans right side out again. You’ll be able to see your patch through the holes. You can pin down the edges of large holes, but don’t try to pull them together if there isn’t enough fabric – you’ll just end up warping the shape of your jeans, and that would be sad. Your goal is for everything to be flat.

Sewing over the hole in the jeans

Sewing over the hole in the jeans, and how the finished patch looks. (Photo by Victoria Stiegel)

With the jeans right side out so that you can see the hole, begin sewing over it. If it’s large, you should secure the edges first. Then, begin to sew a grid over the hole, zig-zagging back and forth horizontally and vertically. Don’t worry about making perfectly parallel or perfectly straight lines.

You should do this over and over (and over and over) again. Start with larger zig-zags, and then go back over them with denser lines. You need to make sure that you’ve covered all the fraying edges, or they might fray further even though you’ve patched them.

At left you can see my first finished patch. You can actually put even more/denser lines of stitches than I did with that one.

And with that, you’re done. The patch might feel a little stiff at first, but after a few wears and a few washes, it will soften up. The edges of the patch may fray a bit, but the the line of stitching that attached it to the jeans in the first place will be enough to keep the fraying from getting bad enough to compromise the integrity of the patch.

Another finished patch

A finished patch on a second pair of jeans. (Photo by Victoria Stiegel)

Here’s the second pair of jeans I patched. Note that I put quite a few more lines of stitching on this one than I did on the first.

I also used this method to repair a tear on the hip of the most comfortable pair of corduroy pants I have ever had the pleasure of owning. The tear happened when I was in a car accident, and I was almost more upset about the pants getting ruined than I was about the car being ruined. Not quite, but almost. Even though I couldn’t wear them, I still kept them, I suppose in the hopes that I would finally figure out how to mend them. And now I have, much to my delight. Since the tear is in a pretty visible location and this method isn’t the prettiest, I will probably still put some kind of cute patterned fabric patch over the top, but that will be purely cosmetic, whereas this mending method actually provides a structural fix.

Saving money is important in general, but it’s especially important for those of us shelling out the big bucks for our education. Patching jeans might not seem like such a huge skill to have, but the more jeans you repair instead of replacing, the more money you’ve saved. Small savings eventually add up to bigger savings.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format