When a rip rips

A few non-sewing friends have come to me with holey jeans which have ripped. There are a lot of you on the edge of non-sewing: beginners, and intimidated souls. Here are a few pointers (via photo) on how to go about repairing the legs of your jeans, if you don't have a friend that sews.

The rip. We are going to repair the rip, and reinforce the official hole. You can also do this with Stitch Witchery- ask for it in the fabric store. Where I sew, cut a strip and iron it. It won't be as stable or as long lasting, but it might slow the demise of a favorite pair of jeans.

Use seam ripper to tear the side seam that is single stitched (not the Flat Fell Seam on the inner leg). Make a hole way past the rip. You need space to work.

Pull out the stitches. It sounds fussy, but you really do want to do this first.

I got some hand-me-down jeans for my son that were out of style. So I saved them and use them for patching jeans. There's no back to these anymore.

Pin patch of jeans behind the rip. I actually pulled this in tighter when I sewed. Make sure to arrange the fabric as close to its original position as possible or it will fit funny.

This isn't the darning stitch. This is a zig zag with three stitches per zig. I use this a lot. It's hard to rip out, which is the point. (it's #9)

When you get close to the edge, flip the factory seam out. You will need to work with it later, and if you sew it down, you are going to be really unhappy.

After sewing all the way around the hole (to prevent having to patch again later), I go back and sew the leg shut. Make sure you start past the rip out spot to reinforce the hole, because this factory edge pulls out easily. Also, line the two sides up carefully and go as close to the original seam as possible- if not, there will be a dark blue line showing (I did rip out one of the pair I worked on today for this very reason).

Good luck! And don't mention to anyone that you can do this, or they will be asking you to fix their pants! ;)