DIY kids clothes repair: It's a knee thing

Has anyone had to deal with this?

Buddy is hard on clothes.

I find it very frustrating.

With a tight budget when it comes to clothes...well everything but clothes especially, Buddy's insistence on wearing out the knees of his pants within weeks is not only frustrating, it's costly. Admittedly, most of his clothes are second hand or bought cheap and these deteriorate fastest for obvious reasons. Although I have the option to buy the more expensive pants (the ones with knee reinforcement or at least thicker, heavier cloth), I can't. 

As I explained to the (childless) lady at Hobby Lobby who suggested I just buy the better quality pants,  I agree quality counts but the fact is I have to buy lots of clothes, not just two or three pairs, as my children attract dirt like little magnets (this seems to be a fairly common trait amongst children). As I am allergic to washing I try to keep the number of loads to a minimum, more clothes means one (maybe two) big loads per person as opposed to six or seven small loads per person. That's my logic and I'm sticking with it.

I know I am not alone in the whole holey knee dilemma. On the first day of school as I chatted with a couple of Mom's, both mother's of boys incidently, we spied two of them "running" along the sidewalk on their knees. After asking them not to that, I expressed my frustration with the hole issue. Between us, for three boys we had gone through 28 pairs of uniform pants in one school year and they never got the chance to outgrow them! Ouch.

I did think it was just a boy thing, until last week. Cuddles wore her new school pants for one day, I washed them and the next time she wore them...

A girlie hole

Can you hear me sigh?

They were from Target and whilst that is inexpensive...

seriously, two wears and they get holes?

It's my fault really. After last year I had decided to reinforce all the knees on their pants but forgot. Silly Mum.

So let's get to how to prevent this the DIY way and fix the pants you have, at least for a few more weeks.

You can buy reinforcing knee patches at most sewing hobby shops. These are simple iron on, no sew patches and retail for about $2 a knee. So, $4 a pair. If you don't wish to fuss, these are a simple option and will extend the life of knees, at least for a while.

Of course, I decided to make the patches myself...thriftiness counts.

I had plenty of old jeans I could cut up for the jean department but needed color matched twill for the school pants. For 1/2 yard of the twill fabric it was $5, less my 40% coupon, so $3 (Hobby Lobby email or newspaper insert coupon). The fusible web is $2.49 a yard (cheaper to buy per yard that the pre-cut sheet packets and it's very useful for hem repair, easy appliques and all sorts). The 1/2 yard of twill would easily reinforce both knees on 16 pairs of kid's pants. So you are looking at about 34c a pair which is a lot cheaper than the pre-made patches.

I find it easiest to attach the webbing to a large area of fabric with my iron and then cut to size. 

Size the patch to fit between the seams on the pants and large enough to cover the high wear area.

The back of the webbing has a plastic cover, like a sticker. 

You just peel it off when you are ready to position the patch.

Turn your pants inside out and flatten.

I was patching these pants...doing a repair, so I just had to find the hole. If you are reinforcing the knees, just make sure the front of the pants are facing up. Reinforcing the back of knees is just silly. 

Not that I would know of course. 

OK, I did it once but you don't have to be me.

Remove your backing. It should look shiny.

Place shiny side down

You don't have to but it will stick to your iron and not the pants if you don't

I know nothing about this either.

Position your patch.

Iron it on.

At this point, ensure you take a blurry photo.

Send it to me so we can compare!

Ta Da!!

Just so you know that is better.

Before

You can trim up the edges of any tear so it looks smoother if you wish.

 I didn't wish.

Cuddles should get another month or two from the pants now which is good and a patched knee is better than no knee. I went on and repaired all Buddy's pants, my husbands work jeans (as a Carpenter he wears his knees out too) and then went and reinforced all knees for everyone. Except me.

Job well done.

Yay me.

Knees aren't the only thing that need fixing round here.

Cuddles presented me with this one last week to.

How she ended up with a slit across the back of one her cutest shirts I couldn't figure out.

Then I cleaned her room yesterday and found the scissors.

For this one I did purchase some repair tape.

This repair tape doesn't need a fabric backing and is lightweight. 

Perfect for the thin jersey material of the top.

Got to get to it. 

Still have to reinforce the "bottom" covering area of all my jeans.

Apparently that's the bit I wear out.

I don't like what that's telling me.

Til later.

xoxoxox