Patches

Today is "Fabric Tuesday" again, over at Quilt Story. The fabric project I'm working on today is far from glamorous, and not nearly as fun as quilting, but as the days have gotten colder, my boys need their jeans. With 2 active boys who spend a lot of time playing in the dirt, on their knees, we rarely have a pair of jeans that don't get patched up before the youngest has outgrown them. I usually wait until I have a few to patch, and today's no exception. Since they're the ones who have to wear them to school, I have always let them pick out the fabrics that they want me to make the patches out of. I tried to talk my youngest into the fly fabric, but he's gotten too old for anything too colorful I guess, and wanted the "camo" pattern. In the past, I've layered a fun cotton fabric on top of a scrap of old jeans and made the patch that way. The camouflage fabric is actually denim, so no need to layer today.

I start by trimming all the strings and fuzz away from the hole, then trim up the pieces of fabric. I use "Wunder Under", a double sided fusible interfacing. It has paper on one side that peels right off once the fusible side is attached by ironing. I then iron the patch onto the jeans, covering the hole. I use the paper that I peeled off to place under the patch, inside of the jeans, to prevent attaching the patch to the back side of the leg when I iron (learned that the hard way). You can also use parchment paper.

Now all I got to do is to stitch it into place. I've learned that the Wunder Under only lasts a few washes before it'll start peeling off. You can do it by hand, but I do just about anything to avoid stitching by hand, so just do a sloppy zig-zag as best as I can. Now they're ready for more wear, and that family dollar has been stretched!!!