A LITTLE CREATIVE MENDING...

Would it surprise you to learn that I'm not a big fan of mending?  Frankly, I don't know anyone who is!  However, I AM a fan of making the things that I and my family own last as long as possible.  Sitting on the top of my mending pile is a pair of jeans belonging to J's girlfriend.  She gave them to me last week and asked me to mend a rip.  The rip is located below the waistband and is a tear in the actual denim...not a seam.  They are a well loved pair of jeans and she was hoping she didn't have to trash them.  We all have those well worn jeans, don't we?  I told her I would do my best to try to match up the fabric as closely as possible.  She said that "close" would be fine since she usually wears her tops "out" as opposed to "tucked".  As long as the tear was closed/covered, she would be happy!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the before.  That is probably because I didn't decide to add a bit of creativity to the repair until after I had begun the mending.  The first thing I did was to look for a bit of denim in my stash that wasn't too "off".  

The denim that matched most closely was a pair of her 4 year old son's outgrown jeans.  She had given them to me to add to my denim collection months and months ago.  Oh how absolutely PERFECT!  By mending her pants with his old jeans, she could carry a piece of her son's clothing with her! 

The first thing I did was cut a piece of denim that was significantly larger than the rip...about 1" all around.   Using Wonder Under I "appliqued" the square of denim to the inside of the jeans.  Now how to handle the outside patch?

Anyone who meets this sweet young woman realizes very quickly that to her "family" is everything.  One of her favorite quotes comes from the movie Lilo and Stitch.  Having never seen the movie, I may be misquoting here but you will get the idea..."Ohana means family and that means nobody is ever left behind or forgotten".  Ohana...the perfect word to tie her son's jeans to her mending! 

So I cut another piece of denim and after trying a few different fonts on my sewing machine,  I embroidered the word "Ohana" onto the denim patch.  I chose a thread as close in color to the top-stitching as I could find.  I then cut the denim patch to size and using Wonder Under attached it to her jeans.  A bit of blanket stitch to make sure the patch stayed in place and it was done! 

The finished mending...

She hasn't seen these yet, but hopefully the significance of the patch fabric and her favorite phrase will make her smile.  To me it is certainly better than a simple piece of denim slapped over the tear.  When you think outside of the box, even a bit of mundane mending can ignite your creative spark!

Toodles...