Patch My Jeans

October 27, 2004 8:43 AM

I finally took a spill rollerblading and tore out the knee of my jeans. Does anyone know of any iron-on patch vendors with a Threadless sensibility?

Alternatively, has anyone had success making their own?

posted by o2b to clothing, beauty, & fashion (5 comments total)

You could try iron-on transfers, printed with an inkjet, on some sort of 100% cotton fabric that you then sew onto the pants.

to avoid the sewing:

There are two kinds of iron-on sewing tape, one of which sucks, but if you go to a real sewing store they could point you toward the good stuff that is often used for hemming pants.
posted by mecran01 at 2:20 PM on October 27, 2004

Your pardon for answering a question you didn't ask:

In-line skating safety equipment
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:10 PM on October 27, 2004

In-line skating safety equipment

Marge: Bart, it's illegal for you to operate that class nine vehicle without pads and a helmet.
Bart: But Mom --
Marge: It's for your own safety.
[later, Bart gets beat up by Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney]
Kearney: Take that, Safety Boy!
Jimbo: This padding's so easy on the knuckles, I could punch all day!
posted by rorycberger at 6:00 PM on October 27, 2004

making their own

it's probably ripped along the lines of thread in the fabric (horizontally + vertically). depending on how you want it to look, you can do various things:

get some thread and a needle and sew it back together. the thread will be obvious, because it'll be stretching from the "whole" part of the jeans to the ripped part (the "flap"). you want the stitches to be about 1cm long, 5mm either side of the tear. the idea isn't to sew the torn part "onto" the rest, but to link across the "gap". you'll need a lot of stitches, close together, for it to be strong enough to last. this is going to look pretty obvious - something like stitches across a scar, but closer together.

get some old material (maybe darker denim or something with a flower print or whaetever), cut out a suitable sized patch and sew it on. you can either leave the edges of the patch exposed, in which case they'll fray, or turn the edges over to make a neat finish. in this case you're sewing the patch onto the material and you normally use a colour thread that matches the patch with very small stitches on the outside (where the patch is). alternatively, use a contrasting colour and bigger stitches.

in either case, put your hand/arm up inside the trouser leg to make sure you don't sew the thing closed.

maybe that's not what you're asking for. it's kind of odd explaining to someone how to sew on a patch, but people have asked for more obvious things in the past, so maybe this is useful... (at least i'm not giving you condescending links to something you didn't ask for!)
posted by andrew cooke at 8:53 PM on October 27, 2004

(three weeks later)

Wow, I didn't think anyone had responded... Thanks for the thoughts. I'll probably end up sewing them together, leaving a big jagged scar so as to look badass. Or maybe I'll make an ion-on with a big daisy on it. Choices choices. For sure I'm not going to start wearing knee pads.
posted by o2b at 11:36 AM on November 19, 2004