Thoughts on boy's trousers with ripped knees - and sewing tips!

[tigermoth]

My 10 year old son is awful at ripping the knees of his trousers. School trousers, jeans, tracksuit bottoms - expensive or cheap, makes no difference.

The rest of the trouser fabric is in good condition, and the trousers still very much fit him. He does not mind me repairing the trousers and I do not like throwing away trousers that are ok in every other respect.

The best way AFAIK of mending the rips is to sew on a patch of fabric inside, but I realise that any mend to the knee and definitely a sewn-on patch, is probably going to be noticeable.

And nowadays, it seems to me that few children wear trousers that have been repaired like this. Is it still acceptable?

Do you repair trouser knees or throw the trousers away? And if you do repair them, is there a good way of discreetly mending ripped trouser knees?

I don't repair them, but neither of my two boys has been particularly hard on their trousers.

I suppose I'd just make sure to buy cheap ones - then you'll be less pissed of at throwing then away.

DS is like this sometimes, he is 5. Jeans look good with ripped knees and school trousers are cheap enough to buy new aren't they? Tell him to stop crawling about!

I have the same trouble with my DS, who is 6.

There is no way I would throw the trousers away, I would be forever buying new ones!!!

About a year ago I finally found a decent solution: as soon as a hole first appears I pick off the back pocket of the trousers/jeans and then sew this over the knee. Then the patch is identical material to the trousers and looks fine. Other parents at his school have started copying me.

It doesn't work for tracky bums, but then DS doesn't wear them.

and I also have no qualms about lettig DS go out of the house in ripped trousers.

Or keep separate trousers for rough play and best

And of course it is acceptable to repair clothes, just because some people have a throw-away attitude doesn't mean it is right or accpetable and doesn't mean the alternative is unacceptable.

HellBent that doesn't work when to some boys all play is rough play!

yes, i mend!

well, i plan to. i just haven't got round to doing it yet.

my plan is to sew a big square/rectangle over the entire knee, that way they'll look kind of like cargo trouser type things. maybe.

we;'ll see! lol

i don't think there is a way of doing it that's not going to be noticeable tbh

thisisyesterday try the back pocket method.

Honestly. It looks like it's meant to be like that.

ds has gone through a knee in three days. i buy knee pads and sew them on, is going ok so far and look fine. but he has started school now so not wearing trousers so much.

will try that for his non-school ones

what do you do on school trousers?

I've started patching jeans because ds ends up putting the knee through on most pairs in the end. He is only 4 though so more than happy to have the iron on motifs from H & M. I suppose a 10 year old is going to be much less impressed with star wars patches.

I wouldn't repair school trousers though. I do tend to only use repaired thngs for days at home.

ds school trousers come with patches.

ahh ours don't. i think i will have to use the worst pair to repair the others.

they were from st john lewis but no current stock

I kept one old pair of school trousers to cut up for patches.

Hem a square or oval patch with the hem towards the right side of the patch.

Sew this patch with a neat slip stich to the wrong side of the trousers with the right side of the patch facing out. ie the right side of the patch should be visible through the hole.

Clip the edges of the hole, then turn under about 1/2 cm around the edges of the hole. (You may need to slash the edges slightly to enable the edge to turn under)

Neatly slip stich the turned under edge of the hole to the patch.

Voila! A genuine bona fide wartime make-do-and-mend patch as taught to me by my mother.

luckily DS doesn't have a school uniform so all his trousers are school trousers/play trousers.

I hope you didn't take my post as rude OP it wasn't meant. I don't have a throw away mentality I just thought school trousers would be something I wouldn't bother repairing as they are cheap and it would be obvious to others they had been repaired too.

DS trousers usually start of as 'good' for parties and such and then get relegated to 'normal' and then 'scruffy'.

I got DS 3 pairs of trousers from M&S for £5 and he's survived so far this year.

I make him change into jeans as soon as he is home and try and spot clean them so they are not put in the wash too often, I think this damages the fibres as well.

Pacific sounds like she knows what she is talking about though so I'd follow that x

I cut off one of the (side) pockets and sew up the opening. They are generally only half trouser fabric but it's usually enough. If you put it on the inside, you can mend it almost invisibly. I've done this with track suit bottoms too.

If it's ripped but the fabric is still in good condition (as opposed to an area where it's all quite worn or an actual hole) have you tried iron-on mender? You put it on the inside and arrange the edges close together before ironing and can be quite unnoticeable. For larger holes I have tried shockers' method, thought I was the only one doing this!

Marks thread foe future use (DS is 6 and it is his school trousers that are the worst). Maybe he has spiky knees.