6 Lovely and Fashionable Denim Jacket Patches
For years, I’ve wanted to restore an antique labor jacket. Vintage clothing has an inherent nostalgia, but denim has the extra layer of nostalgic fabric and nostalgic design. Remove the old repairs from previously patched clothing to show the original distress. In this scenario, the ripped pocket was simply sewed back onto the bodice without strengthening with a patch or compensating for the inches lost due to fraying and subsequent rupture. To accentuate the diverse wear, I added a durable heavyweight denim patch and visible seams. Because this jacket required sewing in about a dozen places, I restricted my colors to blue and white and used basic striped denim materials to create a coherent palette that yet allows for visible stitching.
MATERIALS
mending a garment
Ironic (optional)
Fabric shears
Ruler or tape measure
Shears for pinking
Straight pins or safety pins made from leftover fabric
Fabric marker that is washable, such as tailor’s chalk or a quilter’s pen
Thread sashiko
Needles for Sashiko
Pliers with a needle-nose (optional)
Embroidery scissors or snips for thread cutting (optional)
squeak (optional)
1 Place the clothing on your work table flat.
If necessary, iron. Remove any fray or irritation. Add 12 to 1 inch (1.3–2.5 cm) to all edges of the hole or rip. Build a generous patch: it’s preferable to make a patch that’s too large than one that’s too little. If your rip is 1 inch (2.5 cm) broad, make a patch 2 or 3 inches (5–7.5 cm) wide. This will enable you to stitch your patch into sturdy fabric and cover the hole as well as the damaged, torn, or weakening regions surrounding it.
2 Cut the patch from your leftover fabric using the dimensions from Step 1.
Utilize those beautiful fabric scraps you’ve been saving. It’s critical to utilize high-quality materials in your work, both to add feeling and value and to guarantee the repair has a deeper resonance.
3 Place the patch into the ripped clothing.
This project patches a hole in the corner of a jacket pocket, so the patch entirely covers the hole. The patch should be pinned in place. Using a fabric marker, trace the patch.
4 To produce a completed edge, fold and pin the hole’s edges under.
You may mould the tear into a familiar shape, such as a circle or an oval, or you can accept its unique and abstract form.
5 Thread a needle, knot one end of the thread, and enter the needle from the inside of the garment, keeping the knot concealed underneath.
Insert the needle approximately 14 inch (6 mm) from the hole’s edge and sew a whipstitch (see this page) around the perimeter of the hole until all edges are stitched down. Tie a knot beneath. This will produce a wonderful border around the hole, concealing any frayed edges and resulting in a very minimum repair.
6 Using a ruler and a fabric marker, draw a border around the patch.
To bind the patch’s edges to the garment, use a simple running stitch (see this page). You may keep the present patch form or change the patch edges as desired. Insert the needle 14 to 12 inch (6 mm–1.3 cm) from the patch’s edge and fasten it. As required, tack down the pocket’s corner. I reattached the pocket with a few red stitches and a few stitches around the pocket’s border. Of course, you should avoid stitching the pocket shut. Oops!
