Help With Darning Please?

SunnyGirl

Hi all. I searched for a specific thread about this but couldn't really find anything. If this is in the wrong place Pink or Penny please feel free to move it.

DS1 has ripped a new pair of jeans in a sort of sideways 'L' shape at the bottom of the leg. It's obviously torn and the denim is ragged around the edges.

I want to sew/darn it but am not really sure how to go about it. I can sew ok and also have a machine. I was thinking about oversewing the rip (on the right side of the fabric) as whenever I try to sew a hole up it looks a mess

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated Thank you.

Penelope_Penguin

Do you have a spare piece of denim, or similar weight fabric What I'd do is to pin that to the back of the tear, matching the torn edges neatly. Then zig-zag stitch along the line of the rip in a thread to match the jeans.

I did this recently on my lycra cycling shorts, and it worked brilliantly :j

Penny. x

SunnyGirl

Thats a great idea Penny thanks :j It's always the most obvious things that elude me at times!

tandraig

or another (non-sew) way is get a spare piece of fabric thinner than jeans and use hemming web to attach in place behind the tear as you would when hemming. i did this on a jacket of my OHs and you couldnt see the join from just a couple of feet away!

Patchwork_Quilt

I stuck a similar tear back together with Wonderweb on the inside, sandwiched between another piece of denim from an old pair of jeans. Then, I sewed around the tear with the nearest matching thread.

Hope it helps

ivyleaf

Came across this thread by chance, and my DS tore his polo shirt on a door catch the other day and I've been trying to work out how to fix it as a lot of the threads are torn - so thanks for these ideas!:T

SunnyGirl

Thanks everyone for the brilliant ideas :T I have looked at the tear carefully and think I'll try a mixture of them. I plan on getting a piece of denim from a pair of old sacrificial jeans (which I will save for future repairs as someone's bound to do a similar thing again) and wonder web it to the back of the tear. I can clip the loose threads off the tear so it should look neat afterwards

I was going to zig zag around the tear but when I got my sewing machine out of the airing cupboard I dropped the box and now the needle won't move side to side. It's fine on a straight stitch but it obviously needs looking at :eek: & I don't want to damage it further by using it.

ivyleaf

Oh dear sunnygirl! :eek: I hope you won't have to travel far to somewhere it can be fixed.

SunnyGirl

There used to be a sewing machine shop in our local town but it's closed down now and the nearest one is 30 miles away :eek: I might have an ask around the neighbours etc and see if anyone knows how to have a look at it. My cousin used to be a sewing machine repair man years ago but he lives in Leeds so not a lot of use really! I wouldn't mind but I haven't used it for about 6 months and I've found 3 lengths of material I bought ages ago so was thinking about cutting out 2 skirt & a trouser pattern.