How-To: Patching Pants with Stylish Stitches

Craft & Design Yarncraft

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Here’s yet another way to patch a hole in a pair of pants. I was inspired by a pair of jeans I saw on my friend Gina, and I asked her, “did you do that?” She said, “no, I bought them this way.” So here’s a way to use lots of zigzag stitches to patch up a hole in a pair of pants. Read on for the complete tutorial!

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The pants I’m patching are my boyfriend’s work pants, so I let him pick the patch and thread color. I started out by cutting a piece of fabric big enough to cover the hole and then some. As with darning, we want the patch to be big enough to help distribute the force of wearing evenly throughout the area so the pants don’t sprout new holes right away.

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Pin the fabric to the backside of the hole. If it’s up near the pocket, be sure not to get the pocket fabric caught up in the operation.

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Depending on where the hole is, now might be a good time to use the free arm of your sewing machine, if it has one.

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Start making long lines across the hole area, back and forth, using the reverse function on your machine (usually a button you hold down on the front), creating big zig-zags.

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Keep on going until it’s secured to your satisfaction. Remember to go past the hole a bit to create that force distribution I mentioned earlier.

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Turn the pants 90 degrees and make more stitches in the opposing direction.

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Trim the fabric on the back, and you’re finished!

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Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

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