Nasty Knee Holes - Machine Mending

Nasty Knee Holes - Machine Mending

My kids loathe jeans. I don't blame them, they're nasty leg prisons. We're definitely a leggings/joggers type of family. They are also super duper hard on clothes. This inevitably means holes, tears, rips, cuts, and other destruction in their wardrobes. 99% of clothes are play clothes here. That's what kids do! If I made them all their pants I would probably quadruple layer the knees but I don't, so here we are. 

There are many ways to mend clothes. This is just one way I found that is fairly quick and effective. This would work for holes on/in any type of garment but for this specific post we're dealing with knee holes. I swear, my 5 yr old has the sharpest, boniest knees possible. His older brothers never had this many holes in their pants. 

Tools/items needed:

Repairable clothes

Fabric to use as patches

Gluestick / pins / fusible interfacing (you can buy stretchy interfacing!)

Thread, scissors and a sewing machine. 

After gathering my items to mend, I determine how many knee patches I need and start cutting scrap fabric to size. If the pants are knit, choose a knit fabric. If the pants don't have stretch you could really use anything. Sometimes I double (or triple) layer the fabric if they're pants that will probably be used for quite a while yet to get the most longevity out of the patches. You can get imaginative here, putting little monster faces peeking out of the holes by putting the fabric behind the hole or you can be super practical and use matching fabric on top. I've done a few different things with the last pile I mended. For this dark pink pair I have used a fabric on the exterior and another fabric on the interior, sandwiching the knee holes in between. 

Dark pink pants laid flat on a light green cutting mat. Rectangles of colorful dinosaur fabric have been placed over the knee area.

The next step is to seam rip one side of the pant leg; sometimes the inseam is easier because the outside leg seam is flatlocked or top stitched down. Open plenty of the seam to have more space when repairing. 

Dark pink pants laying on a light green cutting mat. The inseam has been seam ripped open and there is a small seam ripper laying in the open part of the leg seam.

Now you can start attaching your patches! I prefer to use something to help hold the fabric in place other than pins so I will use a double sided fusible interfacing like Heat N Bond or even just washable glue stick. If your pant and patch fabric is knit, it is very unlikely to fray. If you are using a woven fabric you will need to choose a stitch that will hold everything in place and covers most raw edges to keep the fabric from fraying. Once the patch is in place you can begin sewing! Sometimes I just use a long straight stitch around the edges and call it a day. You can quilt, use a free motion foot, zig zag willy nilly or whatever else you think will be fun/easy/cool. The more the pants need to stretch (like leggings) the more careful you need to be on stitch selection. 

Dark pink pants with a colorful dinosaur fabric over the knees on a sewing machine. The foot is down implying that this is where the fabrics are sewn.  

This dark pink pair I zig zagged around the edges and then ran long straight stitches to form an x over the entire patch. These were fairly big patches and I wanted them held down more than just the edges. 

 

The inside of the knee portion of a blue pair of sweat pants. There is a rectangle of blue fabric laid over the original sweat pant fabric.  Blue sweat pants with a hole in the knee. A piece of blue fabric has been pinned to the inside of the leg so the fabric is only showing through the hole.      The knee section of a pair of blue sweat pants. There is a hole in the original fabric and slightly different blue fabric is showing through the hole. A very random spiral type quilting has been done over the entire knee area.

This pair I used 2 layers of cotton spandex fabric under the knee hole. I used my trusty glue stick to hold everything in place but pinned it until the glue was dry so it didn't shift. I zig zagged the edges again but then used my free motion foot to do the quilting effect. Make sure to go over the edges of the hole to hold all the bits down! 

Once you have the patch sewn to your satisfaction, cut all your thread ends. Then close up the leg seam you opened. I zipped them all through on my serger but you can absolutely use your regular sewing machine - just remember to use a stretch stitch on knit pants. 

Dark pink pants inside out with a piece of light brown fabric over the knee area. The inseam is being serged shut.

4 pairs of sweat pants laid out so 1 leg of each is visible. Dark grey pair on the left has a dark grey oval shaped, quilted knee patch. The next pairs is blue with white quilting covering the knee area. Brown pairs has an orange moto style patch and the last pair on the right are dark pink with colorful rectangle dinosaur knee patches.

Here are the 4 pairs I did. The dark grey have 2 layers of patch - the fabric all around the knee is fairly worn and bare but the pants still fit the kiddo well so I want them to last. I used a thicker knit (cotton spandex French terry) and just a cotton spandex jersey, quilted them together - the rows of stitching are just on the knee patch, and then used a small zig zag to sew the patch to the pants. I did stitch over the quilting lines in the middle like an x to hold them down better. The brown pair I took a rectangle of fabric the right width but extra long and made pintucks down it to give it the look of a moto patch. I just stitched along the edges of that one as they aren't super big (that pair of pants is several sizes bigger than the others, for point of view).

Young child standing on a porch in front of the railing. They are wearing dark grey sweat pants with large oval quilted knee patches, a black long sleeve tee with a soccer ball graphic and a light grey baseball hat with colorful dinosaurs on it. Their head is tilted down so that the majority of their face is hidden by the hat. 

Back to blog