Patching Jeans

Everyone has those favourite jeans that they like to wear the most and in my husband's case they are much worn and patched.  He has other pairs we are not short of things to wear it is just that he likes the fit of this particular pair and when he bought them they already had that distressed look with a couple of strategic mock patch areas.   The trouble with that feature is it has usually been stressed during manufacturing to get it just the right shade in certain areas, these areas are then of course weak and will not last under any strain.  That is what has happened with these, this will be the third time I have patched these and today I did three areas.  It is worth doing though as once they are done and ironed the effect is only the same as on the ones you buy in the shops.

This is where the legs off old discarded pairs of jeans come in handy, they don't have to be the same colour as it is going underneath.  Sometimes I use the right side of the fabric and sometimes the reverse.   The first job is to undo the seam down the side, I find it is just so much quicker to do this than try and force a large area of leg under the machine.

 It will be a quick job to just run that back in again it is only a straight seem after all.

Next I cut the piece of scrap denim a bit bigger than the area that is damaged and pin that in  place.

I used the wrong side of this fabric as it was a bit darker.

I then make sure that the hole is together and lying flat then I stitch forwards then reverse using a straight stitch, the effect you get is random criss cross, I concentrate more on the areas where the fabric comes together but up to the edge of the patch underneath.   The threads you can see in this image are just places where I moved it back by hand to line it up again, they are trimmed off afterwards.

Then when all the patches are complete just turn it through to the wrong side and sew the seams.

This is a finished patch near the pocket, I used a light blue cotton to go with the denim but you see some jeans where a contrast has been used to make the patched area stand out.  I think I prefer it less visible. 

Does anyone else have different ways of doing this?  Do you like to see the patches or make them blend in? Let me know in the comments section, I always enjoy reading the comments.