Holey Moley!

The six-year-old has become a professional at ripping out the knees of his pants. Daycare has an indoor playroom with a foam-padded floor and I'm sure he spends much of his afternoons happily sliding around on his knees. Not at all concerned with the disapproving look he'll receive when I come to pick him up and see that he has destroyed another pair of pants.



Not only is this frustrating because I don't want to keep replacing his school pants every few weeks, but it's also very difficult to find pants to fit this kid. If they fit in the waist, he looks like he's wearing capri pants. If they're long enough there's about 3 extra inches around the waist. Adjustable waistbands are fantastic, but they don't tighten up that much. So if I've actually found a pair of pants that fit him, I want to hold onto them as long as possible.

I finally decided to look into options for repairing these pants. Those iron-on patches have been around forever, but I think everyone knows those things peel off after a couple of washes. I came across two excellent posts on repairing jeans and put them into action!

It's a little scary to rip open the side seam of a pair of jeans. I'm supposed to be repairing, not making things worse after all! But it was necessary to get the jeans under the sewing machine needle. I cut up an old pair of my jeans (that were beyond repair!) to create the patch that I pinned to the inside of the pants.



I sewed some random zig zags over the hole and the surrounding area and trimmed down the patch. Then I re-sewed the side seam and serged over the seam allowance.



Here we have the final repair. And after a couple of washes it appears to be holding up well! I wish I could think of some cool patches to applique on his knees, but I'm having a hard time thinking of things that aren't too cutesy/baby-ish. Suggestions are welcome!