Why might a busy, “modern” mother of 3 young children take 30 minutes to hand sew patches on the knees of her 4 year old son’s jeans. For such a straightforward activity the answers are complicated–To save money, To see if I could do it, To save a favorite, broken in pair of jeans, I like the look and so on.

For weeks the problem has been growing. What started as a little worn spot on one knee quickly grew to a hole, which again quickly grew. The problem spread to the other knee. This favorite wardrobe item (worn at least 4 times a week when clean), was on its way out. I wondered the best way to handle it. They were still mostly good and I hated to throw them away knowing how much they were loved. I thought about cutting them off for shorts, however in our northern climate and a winter that started early, was very cold and refused to end shorts were far from my mind.

Just buy a new pair, my modern brain told me as I was helping him put them on while trying to keep toes out of the hole. However I knew my propensity to overspend when going shopping. I don’t shop much because I know when I go I always buy things I didn’t intend to. So now I go very infrequently which makes the problem worse because I think, “I won’t go shopping again soon is there something else I need.”

Then I remembered—You know how to patch. I learned the couple summers I worked as a “costumed interpreter” at Historic Fort Snelling. I hated it then, but I wondered can I do it still? I had ample fabric and a problem a patch would fix. Normally I dislike fixing and prefer to make new but new didn’t seem to be desired in this case, who likes new jeans anyway?

I selected blue corduroy. I cut pieces big enough to cover the entire weak spot (i.e. the knee). I tucked the raw edges under and pinned it in place on the inside of the knee then whipstitched around the entire patch. Then turn the jeans right side out, cut all the strings and again tucked the raw edges in around the hole. Whipstitch again. Voile totally reinforced knees and a solved problem.