In my last post I showed you how to mend a small rip in your jeans (if you missed that post, you can check it out HERE). And today I’m going to go through how I reinforced the back crotch of those same jeans.

The back crotch of these jeans was starting to wear thin, so I decided to reinforce this area with a couple patches to take the pressure off the area before it becomes a real problem. If your jeans are wearing in the front crotch as well as the back crotch, you can apply this same method. You’ll just need to add two more patches to the front crotch.

Here’s what it looked like before, you can see the back crotch is really starting to wear thin:

wear is showing as thin white areas in the back crotch of jeans

And here’s the inside after I patched it:

the crotch of the jeans is reinforced with two triangular denim patches

I’m so happy with the results I got using this method to patch the crotch of my husband’s jeans! It’s pretty much invisible from the outside:

invisible patching of the back crotch of jeans

Ok, so let’s get into the tutorial!

What you need:

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Steps:

  1. Turn jeans inside out and cut patches to fit in within the crotch seams
  2. Sew the patches to the crotch seams along the straight edges
  3. Sew the outer edges of the patches to the jeans with a hand sewing needle
  4. Done!

Instructions:

First, turn your jeans inside out and cut two rounded triangular patches that are the right size to fit between the seams of the back crotch (with some overlap onto the seams) and long enough to cover any signs of wear.

the back crotch of jeans shown with a spool of thread, a needle, scissors, and two dark triangular denim patche

Line up one of the patches over the seams on one side of the back crotch.

one triangular denim patch is lined up one one side of the back crotch of jeans, fitting between the seams

Use your sewing machine (you could also hand sew this if you don’t have a sewing machine) to sew the two straight edges to the jeans. Make sure to only sew within the jean’s seams because it will be less visible from the outside and more sturdy.

the triangular patch is sewn to one side of the back crotch within the crotch seams of the jeans

Repeat with the other patch to sew it to the other side of the back crotch of the jeans.

two triangular patches are sewn into the back crotch of the jeans

Now we’re going to hand sew the outer curved edges of the patches to fully secure them to the jeans. Start by threading a needle with a double thickness of thread. Knot and trim the ends of the thread tails together.

a needle is threaded with a double thickness of thread that is arranged in a spiral pattern on the table

Start by pushing the needle up through the seam of the pants at one end of the patch, pushing the knotted thread tails against the outside of the pants.

thread is pulled through one end of the patch from the outside of the jeans

Next, push the needle back down through the patch. You can take a relatively large stitch here; about 1/4 inch.

1/4 inch stitch with white thread on patch in the crotch of jeans

Then push the needle back up from the outside of the jeans. This time take a much smaller stitch; this will make the stitching practically invisible on the outside because the longer stitches are only on the inside.

take a small stitch from the outside of the jeans into the patch

Repeat this process all the way around the outside of the patch, continuing to make small stitches on the outside and longer stitches on the inside. Tie off the thread tails and trim.

stitch all the way around the outside of the patch

Now you can repeat this same process to sew the outer edge of the other patch to the jeans.

two triangular patches sewn into jean crotch to reinforce it

And that’s it! I think next time I would finish all the edges of the patches with a serger or a zigzag stitch before sewing them into the jeans to keep them from unraveling and looking ragged. But for the most part I’m super happy with how this worked out!

 

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pinterest graphic showing jeans crotch reinforced with patches pinterest graphic showing back crotch of jeans patched