Em came home the other day upset about a tear in her jeans. She was running and fell, which left a small hole near the knee of her favorite jeans. I told her not to worry about it; she could still wear the jeans with the hole, at least for playing in. Then, I remembered a picture that I saw on pinterest that had some very pretty stitching around a patch that was made from different fabric. Hoping I could stitch something that didn’t look too awful, I decided to give it a try. Em was pretty happy with the results.

I started by sifting through my bag of fabric scraps until I found something that I thought would look nice with the jeans. This pretty piece is leftover from a baby quilt that I made last year. I really like the polka dot print, so decided to go with that section.

I cut the fabric so that it was a little bigger than the hole I was going to patch.

I placed this fabric scrap on the inside of the jeans and pinned in place.

I found some embroidery thread in some colors that I though might look nice. Embroidery thread is made up of 6 smaller threads so I separated it into 3 and 3 to make the string a little thinner and easier to work with.

Thread this onto a sewing needle – sharp end with a wider hole to thread the thicker string onto.

Tie a knot at the end and bring your thread up from the bottom to get started.

I started by making 2 rows of stitching close to the hole opening. Just in and out all the way around. Then, I started making these little x’s.

 

I trimmed some of the frayed edges away from the hole to make it easier to stitch around. once these are washed a few times, they’ll probably fray a little bit more and give the jeans additional “character.” Em’s happy with them, and it was fun to try this out. If I tackle it again, I might chose some brighter thread for deeper contrast and also add some other patches in different spots to streamline the look a bit. Overall, a fun and easy project that took very little time and extended the life of these jeans.