We all have those favorite jeans that you want to wear every day. But once you have rounded the arc from the perfectly worn in denim to threadbare city, what now? You can’t exactly keep wearing them with your booty peeking out. But if you don’t want to part with them quite yet, you can always get them patched or darned. Wait, there are two options?

At Silhouette we just offer denim patching. We will use a scrap piece of denim on the underside to “fill in” the hole, and then machine stitch over it, following the natural grain line of the jeans until the fabric is sturdy once again. This option is relatively inexpensive. We charge $10 for a small hole and $20-25 to patch both sides of the crotch. While it’s a pretty good option, it’s still covering a hole, not fixing the problem. 

While we are magicians at alterations, Rain at Indigo Proof Denim Repair is a wizard at darning denim. She is a specialist. She uses a Singer 47w70 industrial darning machine and literally recreates your denim using thread, so it looks like nothing ever even happened. With darning, the hole is actually rewoven and re-integrated into the denim with no patches. It lasts much longer and is softer and stronger than patching. Rain uses multiple colors of cotton thread to recreate unique faded patterns and over time the darned area will age the same as the denim. It’s beautiful. It’s a craft. It ain’t cheap (small holes start at $50). But, I’d say, especially for a good fitting pair of jeans (seriously, NOBODY likes jeans shopping), it’s totally worth the investment. 

Darning does have its limitations. Stretch jeans and thin denim cannot be darned, but they can be patched. Darning works best for medium to heavy weight, non-stretch jeans. Think vintage Levi’s or salvage denim. For both darning and patching, preventative care is going to prolong the wear of your pants and be cheaper in the long run. Repairing a small hole or worn-down fabric will be much cheaper than waiting until that tiny hole has turned into a massive blowout.  Also, go to Indigo Proof for salvage denim hemming. Rain uses a Union Special 43200G chainstitch machine to achieve the roping technique used on these jeans! To find out more, visit her website!