Reclaim-Recycle-Reuse: Patched Up Jeans

It was back in December when I came across these patched jeans during a thrift store shopping excursion. I’ve been making more of an effort to wear what I buy sooner rather than later but there was a necessary delay with this delightful prize. Reclaim-Recycle-Reuse is the theme for my posts on the 3rd Saturday of the month. These posts are intended to highlight the fashion options available through thrifting, rediscovery, and/or reimagining.

I’ve got a weak spot for jeans with embroidery and/or other types of embellishments so the patches really caught my eye. The brand, KUT From The Kloth, is one I recognized as carried at Macy’s and Nordstrom’s so I was thrilled to find it at a bargain price. The patches are actually sewn on so I was fairly certain that their placement on the jeans was intentional. There was one catch, though.

In their original state, there was a huge rip at the knee of the left leg (see photos below). Not that it would’ve made a difference if it had been on the right leg. 😂 I don’t mind my jeans looking a little distressed but I avoid the destroyed aesthetic with missing sections of fabric and gaping holes. After a moment or two of consideration, I figured that I could do a little DIY repairing to make them more to my liking. If I failed, the investment wouldn’t have been that much and I’d figure out another use for the jeans.

It turned out to be a rather easy process even though I spent quite a bit of time in the fabric store making my decisions. I’d figured that I could fill in the hole with some sort of lacy material and maybe add a patch or two. My goal was that the “repair” not look like a repair but as an intentional design of the jeans. I didn’t want any visible stitching so I first looked at iron-on fusing as a means to adhere the fabric insert to the jeans. Most of the iron-on fusings seemed to indicate that they add stiffness and I worried that they wouldn’t be a good match for the stretchiness of the denim.

I settled on fabric glue. Next, I went searching for the fill-in fabric and found a lovely one with a daisy-like pattern. Picking up on that motif, I found a set of three daisy iron-on patches that I used to make the repair look less like a repair. My apologies for having no photos of the “repair” process but it was really quite simple to do.  From the results, you can see how large the hole at the knee is/was.  I don’t think that jeans were intended to have such a large missing chunk of fabric as I’ve been able to find an image of them in a Macy’s ad on Pinterest with a fully intact, albeit distressed knee.

In that image, the jeans are shown with rolled cuffs so that they’re a cropped length and the model is wearing white slip-on sneakers. I will definitely give at styling a try as the temps warm-up. However, for these photos, I opted for a cooler weather look with my moto-style boots and a chunky cardigan. All of the pieces in this ensemble are second-hand buys. In fact, the boots are among the first of my pre-owned purchases, bought at a consignment store about three years ago.

I used two of the three daisy patches at the top and bottom of the repair. I turned the other cheek, so to speak, on the placement of the last one. 🌼 To be honest, I’d been curious as to the meaning behind the patches on these jeans before I found out that they had been made with them. Several of them are military in nature, lending an all-American, patriotic tone to their presence.

About a week ago, I came across this article, Now Is When We Learn To Darn Our Socks Again, in the New York Times. I fondly recall a time when one of my grandmothers attempted to teach me how to darn.  Anyway, the focus of the article is on the rising popularity of secondhand fashion with an aesthetic based on visible mending.  Which ironically was what I had tried to avoid with my patched up jeans.  Still, I do like distressed and deconstructed details so I did find the article inspiring and some of my creative juices starting to stir.  Who knows what will come of it?

Be well and let’s connect! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, love, pin … all options are available and waiting for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~