Sunday, April 5, 2015

Patching Jeans.........Or Why Blogging is Good Therapy.....

So today after baking my bread and rolls for the next two weeks....


I'm patching jeans......

I don't like patching jeans.  I don't mind patching the butt, and the crotch isn't too bad, but I can't stand patching the legs/knees.  See, The Man, while being a heavily muscled man up top, has itty bitty bird legs.  He's about 5'5" on a good day and weighs 190 lbs, almost all of which is packed in his shoulders, arms, and neck.  He's got the skinniest legs I've ever seen....chicken legs really.  He can wear skinny jeans and they don't even look skinny on him, just normal!  

So anyway, he wears Carhartt jeans, which used to be good jeans.  But just like everything else, they are no longer a USA made product and they pretty much stink now.  I have to patch the back pockets, crotch, butt and knees all the time.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, grumbling, sighing and pretty much just pitching a baby fit because I don't like patching jeans, and feeling immensely guilty about it because it's Easter and Jesus didn't pitch a fit about DYING ON A CROSS for me, and here I am crying about not wanting to patch jeans......

Then I thought, hey I should do a blog post about patching jeans.....so here we are..

The first thing you do is cut a patch.  I use the lower legs of jeans that are beyond hope...and the rest of the pant goes to my Mama for making her embroidered denim quilts...


After you've cut the right sized patch, and you always cut big because you want to really stitch pretty far out around the hole.  Nothing worse than fooling with the silly thing to only find out you didn't go "deep" enough and didn't get the entire hole patched....


And then you just sew in zig zag, back and forth and sideways, all over the patch until you've got it all covered, being careful not to sew the pants to themselves, which is very easy to do, especially in the case of patching knees, and which will have you cussing, which will in turn make you feel guilty again......until it looks like this.  


Is it pretty??  Nope, but it doesn't have to be.  Does it do a good job of keeping The Man's doodle covered?  You betcha!


Now at this point, I ran out of bobbin and switched to blue, so the patch on my jeans will look far better than the patch on The Man's.....

As you can see, when I rip mine, I do a good job......

I get my jeans at Goodwill for 3 bucks.  You may be asking yourself, why in the WORLD do you patch them then?  Simple answer is because I like this pair and there is nothing wrong with the rest of the jean, just this huge rip in the butt.  My goats could care less if they are patched, so they are great jeans for around here and fishing and such.....


And besides, patching a large butt rip like this one isn't hard at all.....


After you've gotten the patch all sewed down, you cut the excess patch away.... 


And there you have it!  Good as the Goodwife needs them to be!


So I'll leave you with this....

I'm so very thankful for a Savior who was willing to go to the cross, willing to die for me and you, even when we are ugly and hateful and petulant and whiny about patching jeans.

                                 "And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power."  

 1 Corinthians 6:14

Till next time!

God Bless,

8 comments:

  1. Lol, great post! Any sewing machine suggestions? Also, Happy Easter! :)

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    1. I bought mine at the waltrash for my 30th birthday. It's just sort of a cheaper model, but it does what I need it to do. It's got several fancy stitches and such. I had tried several older machines and they just never worked out for me. My mom bought me one at a yard sale and she sewed with it first (because she's an uber genius seamstress) and it worked great for her. Not so for me.......it liked to killed both of us! Happy Easter to you!! :)

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  2. I'm with you, I hate patching jeans, but also can't see not doing it when it will make them last that much longer. Interesting analogy, thanks for the reminder that we really don't have a lot to whine about......even though sometimes we do anyway.

    Fern

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    1. Yup, I think we all do it, and most of us really have NO reason to! :)

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  3. I patch trousers as well, his and mine. But unlike your good self, I do not anyone to donate the trousers to once they are beyond redemption. So what I do is keep them, which is silly really, because all that happens is that my sewing area gets more and more cluttered up. The other day I had a mighty sort out, cut any fabric away from the trousers which was reasonably Ok, then threw out the rest, which was sensible as I needed the space but I still felt guilty about doing so. I think I might make some shopping bags, or dog rugs, or pinafores, etc.... with the decent bits of trouser fabric, but not sure when I will have the time to do so, but possibly in my next lifetime!

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    1. I know exactly what you mean about the guilt! Even some of the ones I give to my mom, I still feel as if I should be making an attempt to mend them! She does make gloriously warm blankets out of them though, so they don't go to waste at least. Ha! about the next lifetime, I know how that goes.......never enough hours in the day is there! :)

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