Denim Month: Repairing Holes

Hello friends!

I am really excited to be writing this blog post – my final one for denim month! As you may have seen on my Instagram I have been trying to shift my focus from new makes to spending more of my time and energy on repairing existing items that need a little bit of TLC. I have been joining in with #mendingmonday and committing some time each Monday to repairing at least one item but once I have my needle and thread out it often turns into two or three things that get a bit of love!

This Monday, I had received this pack of Gutermann Jeans threads. This is different to the previous pack I had received as it contains the variegated blues in both the mid-blue and indigo shades, I wanted these because I had a specific denim project in mind – invisible mending!

I have been trying my hand at a bit of visible mending and often make vibrant patches to fix the knees of my little boy’s clothes, but sometimes there are areas we don’t want to mend so visibly. I am specifically referring to the crotch area of jeans. Both myself and my husband wear through the denim at the thigh area of jeans long before we wear through knees and in the past I have considered these garments to be worn out and have harvested the denim for other purposes.

My husband is notorious for not wanting to buy clothes, he hates shopping and I think jeans-shopping specifically is near to his worst nightmare. So when he said his only pair of jeans was wearing through at the crotch I wanted to step in before they were completely worn out! I selected the thread that was closest in shade to that specific area of denim and threaded the machine – I am going heavy-duty on this repair, no hand stitching for this one!

As soon as I had done the first few rows of stitching I knew this was going to work! I went back and forward using my straight stitch machine and then rotated the jeans at a 90 degree angle and went back and forwards again. I was basically aiming to sew a new layer of fabric over the hole.

These pictures show the before and after – I know the colour looks different but I can assure you they are the same jeans – I sew at a window and the light changes often.

It worked a treat! I cannot believe how well it actually worked – the hole is gone, the area of fabric feels strong and the mend is near-invisible (honestly it is showing up in these photos way more visibly than it looks in real life!). I was already a fan of these denim threads for constructing denim and topstitching but I am thrilled how amazingly well this dappled-blue works at mending!

It really wasn’t hard, I simply stitched a line forwards then pressed the reverse button and went back slightly to one side and repeated until the hole was hidden, I then did the same in the crosswise direction for strength. I didn’t do anything special or tricky so if you have some denim with thin patches I would highly recommend giving this a try! The denim threads don’t just come in packs, you can buy them individually so if you have a pair of jeans nearing the end of their life it might be well worth spending £2ish on a thread to see if you can try to save them!

I was a bit concerned that the stitched area would feel ‘rough’ against an inner thigh compared to the softness of the worn denim so I didn’t go to town stitching over all the worn areas – I focussed on just closing up the hole. My husband does assure me that the stitching doesn’t feel uncomfortable though so I plan on further reinforcing these in other worn areas.

I am so chuffed that this worked well, I think my technique could be improved but I am so glad to now have this kind of mending in my arsenal, no need to throw out jeans needlessly ever again!

For more information on Gutermann’s jeans thread, you can find out more from their website: https://consumer.guetermann.com/en/products/sewing-threads-accessories or you can email: gutermann@stockistenquiries.co.uk

Disclaimer: ⭐️Threads were provided free of charge in exchange for a review. All opinions are totally my own, and I wouldn’t recommend something I didn’t like!