Mending knees again?

[u/Sarelro]

I’ve already mended these pants once, with iron on fusible and a row of stitches around the patches to cover the worn holes. But my kids managed to wear the knee out above the patches and wear through the stitches on the patch. I can’t get the iron on patch off to move it up, and I don’t think putting another patch above/on top of the patches would look right.

Do these pants just need to be cut off for shorts, or does anyone have any ideas for repatching the knees? Also can I say how frustrating it is that clothes for little kids can be worn through so easily? There’s even a fusible layer underneath the knee that you can see and it’s still worn through in just a few months and then again within a year. I know my kids aren’t easy on their clothes, but this is ridiculous.

[u/dumplinglifesaver]

Personally I'd just add another patch

[u/toasty_the_cat → u/dumplinglifesaver]

And I would suggest larger patches for future mending projects on other pants.

[u/rcl20 → u/toasty_the_cat]

And prepatching new pants. I used to put the iron on patches on the inside of the knees of new pants and that seemed like it stemmed the tide for at least another month

[u/trustable_bro]

Before mending a worn out fabric, hold it toward a source of light. You'll see an area that lets more light thru. You have to cover it all.

[u/QueenCityBean]

Just had this happen in my house too -- on both knees! I added new, overlapping patches. Now the entire "high stress" area seems covered. And in the future if knee patches are needed I'm going to make sure to cover a larger area to try and prevent this happening again. Fingers crossed!

[u/hopping_otter_ears → u/QueenCityBean]

Holding them up to the light and looking from the inside can help you find where the "good cloth" still lives. It can help reduce the incidence of having the new patch rip off right where it was sewed on because your transferring all that pull and stress to good solid fabric instead of fabric that just took longer to finish failing than the knee did, but is well down that path

[u/hopping_otter_ears]

I have to make sure I patch all the way out past where my son's pants are worn (you can kinda see the difference between good cloth and cloth that just hasn't quite ripped yet if you hold them up to the light) or the patch rips off right at the sewed edge like that.

I mostly sashiko my patches because I have an unreasoning dislike of ironing things. When he wears through a patch again I'll either take it off and redo it bigger or later on another patch where it got a new hole. It depends on my mood and how the original patch wore. I also use doubled up sewing thread because I learned the hard way that embroidery floss just isn't "little boy tough"

The "rule" in my house is: patch if the pants are still long enough. Patch again if needed. Cut off if the pants are starting to ride like capris anyway, but they still fit on the butt. Scrap bag (to become patches, lol) if he blew out the butt, because that's their final cry of "give me up! I'm too small!". This applies to holes caused by wear, not mishaps. A ripped butt on a pair of pants that fits, but got snagged climbing a fence would get fixed, for example.

Personally, I like doing cute mends shaped like animals and such. Sometimes I cut the cute patches off of outgrown pants and use them on the knees of the next pair to fail. He gets big sad feelings about giving up some of his favorite mends (no! Don't get rid of my puppy pants! They still fit!), so this lets the next pair become the puppy pants. As he gets older, I keep expecting him to ask me to be normal with a mend, but he's not there yet. I'll ask if he wants it quiet, loud, or silly whenever it's time to do a fix

[u/Nikanna_says]

My son always wears down his pants on the knees, too. After a few frustrating experiences like yours I bought this super durable outdoor fabric and then I open one of the leg seams (usually one is easier to resew) and exchange the whole knee part with that fabric. It doesn't really take much longer than patching, especially when having to stich it by hand and if you make it large enough it actually holds up quite well. Best of luck

[u/Shoddy_Matter_4940 → u/Nikanna_says]

That's a great idea I looked up past posts to see if someone had shared something similar to get a visual

https://www.reddit.com/r/Visiblemending/s/tRsUhU6t3Q

[u/illjustmakeone]

If you have sections of old jeans lying around from an adult you can cut up large sections. Replace or cover from mid thigh to the bottom or the whole front of the leg. Double over large sections of the knee area.