Repairing jeans

[NearlyVegan]

How do you repair the inside thigh of jeans once it's started to become thin and frayed?

I'm trying to be as frugal as possible and I really like these jeans.

I don't have a sowing machine and it's to high to just make into shorts.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I think I'd try a bit of amateur invisible mending, myself. I don't know how the professionals do it, but the way I do it is like this:

Find a cotton that matches the colour as closely as possible. When you've got the needle threaded, run it through a lump of beeswax a couple of times - this will make it much less likely that the thread will knot. Run a couple of lines of small stitches just around the worn area, to stabalise it. Then weave lines of stitching across the area, hiding as much of the stitching as possible under the existing material, and allowing the thread to show on top in only tiny stitches. Do this all the way across the area in one direction, and then do it again in the opposite direction. Work from the top side of the material, so you can see the effect you are producing. When you have finished, turn the jeans inside out, and if it looks to need it, you can do a bit of tidying up on the underside, perhaps catching in any loops that have accidentally formed, and reinforcing the stitching underneath, but without doing any more stitching that shows on the upper side. I hope that makes sense - it's a difficult thing to explain to a non-sewer. Your jeans will most likely be pure cotton, so you will be able to use cotton thread or polyester thread.

Run a couple of lines of small stitches just around the worn area, to stabalise it

• just outside, I meant. Not around. I wish MN had an edit function.

Oh god - trying to explain something like this in words ... don't run the needle through the beeswax! Run the COTTON through the wax.

There. I think I've managed to explain it all!

I'd do what @Time40 has said, but if you're less handy with a needle then iron on patches are pretty good.

Look on Ista etc under #visiblemending. Really amazing stuff on there. My jeans currently have 3 patches - one knee, two on the crotch/thigh as you mention.

So i used an old pair of jeans which I didn't like as much and wouldn't want to repair, cut patches to size, used that wonderweb/tape stuff that you iron on to stitch in place, then used a thick cotton thread to stitch them in place - a bit like this, hope the link works!

The patches are in contrasting denim, to make more of a feature of it.