The denim clinic: mending my favourite jeans

I can’t throw these jeans away.  They aren’t particularly ‘cool’ but they are comfy and they fit me and I like them, so they are staying.

The problem with these jeans is that they are very light weight denim and so are wearing out at a very fast pace.  The only solution is to keep fixing.

They started out with a single knee patch, then a second knee patch and now I am onto fixing more knee thinning.

BEFORE:

PREP:

I patching it up, to strengthen the area.  I used some grey and white striped cotton fabric, a scrap I found in my box.  It’s a thin cotton and because I wasn’t at the studio and machine-less, I just used iron-on glue to secure the piece. I left the edges raw.  Just because.

AFTER:

I used the white lines in the stripe to guide the straight lines of sashiko stitching.  I thought I would experiment with the crosses.  I think it paid off.  The white rows were an afterthought, aiming to pull it all together.  You can see there is one row of straight stitching.  Clearly I missed that row, oh well, happy accident!

Can you spot the straight stitch row?

Close up

If you are wanting some visible mending on your favourite jeans,  just drop me a line.  I am happy to help.

x

Mending, thou shalt not be boring!

I picked up a pair of jeans recently.  They were new jeans with fake ageing.  I have to say I am generally not a fan of such techniques, but they fit really well and I was in need of a quick fix.  This doesn’t exactly fits with my ideals, but hey ho.

I knew that the knees would go pretty quickly as the ageing made them pretty weak and so a hole quickly emerged.  Of course, cool people leave such holes, but I just can’t.  I see creative possibilities and I just can’t leave them.

I have been wanting to try some more complex Sashiko for a while and these jeans presented an opportunity to experiment.

A few months ago I visited the Craft and Quilt Fair in Sydney, not exactly my bag, but worth a trip to meet Jane MacDonald, the owner of Bebe Bold, a local Sashiko supplier and teacher.  It was crazy busy but she chatted to us for a while and helped me choose some thread and impart some of her vast knowledge.  I bought some lovely pieces, three Olympus threads, long Sashiko needles and some Kogin fabric.  Jane also gave me instructions for a pin cushion, the Hitomezashi Hydrangea pattern.

NB: Kogin fabric has little dots printed on the fabric, it helps to make the stitching process a little easier.  When you wash the fabric, the dots disappear.

I have been dying to try it for a while but it looked frightening complicated so I have been sitting on it.  Time to bite the bullet.

Here’s what I did;

WRONG SIDE: I started by repairing the hole.  I used the selvedge of the Kogin fabric (no waste here!) and used some iron on glue to press it in place. 

RIGHT SIDE: Hole reinforced and ready for patching

I cut a piece of Kogin fabric to cover the hole and pinned in place

Then it was a case of following the instructions, starting with 2 rows of crosses in blue and orange thread.

The final stage was weaving the white thread between the crosses

I am not the neatest hand sewer, even with the dots to help me out.  But it’s quite lovely all the same.

Boring mending?  Definitely not. Enjoyable mending?  Most definitely.

I loved sitting down with the kids, I rarely do it.  They watched ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ while I stitched away.

Cosmic x