My son’s pants never survive more than a month. It doesn’t matter whether he is wearing jeans, sweat pants or cargo pants, knees get ripped within few weeks. Considering my son’s growth rate, reinforced knee jeans are not that economical. Patching knees isn’t easy either. I decided to do something to stop pants’ knees from getting ripped.
I got fusible interfacing, one thick (fusible fleece), one thin (fusible featherweight) from Jo-ann‘s. Fusible interfacing is quite inexpensive and you don’t need that much, unless you want to keep extra for the future or other craft projects. I use them for my sewing projects, so I buy by the yard when I get it.
Before schools started, I lined up all the pants. I counted the knees and I cut off 5″ x 5″ squares from fusible fabric for the knees.
I had my son wear all his pants to mark the knees on his pants. I made sure I lined the fusible interfacing where he would touch his knees on the ground when he kneeled down. I used thicker fusible interfacing on his pants with lighter fabric and thinner fusible on his pants with heavier fabrics.
I laid fusible interfacing on the knees with adhesive sides down and ironed until they bonded to his pants.
We are in January and all of his pants reinforced with fusible interfacing have survived. No ripped knees, no sewing. Wo-hoo!
I recommend using good quality fusible and ironing them on really well to withstand weekly washing. The ones I used are still on.
Curious if this would work for stretchy pants and jeans?
Corinne,
It would work with jeans. I iron them on the insides of sweatpants, even fleece ones and some of them are stretchy to an extend but I’m not sure how it would work on leggings with lycra or more flexible fabrics.
Hi, curious on how this works? I’ve been buying my son reinforced knee uniform pants, sweat pants, jeans, etc for same reason but on some pants the outer fabric already ripped:( at least the holes don’t go all the way thru but it’s unsightly to hav torn pant knees:(
Hi, will you provide a link to the fusible interfacing you used? Do you iron it to the inside of the pants? My son wears through the knees of all his at home pants, pj’s & sweats. I’m about to order all new & want to try this before he wears them. Thanks!
Thank you! I was looking for something like this. I think this will really help a lot.
In your post you said “I used thicker fusible interfacing on his pants with lighter fabric and thinner fusible on his pants with heavier fabrics.” Is this right? I would have guessed thicker interfacing would be best for heavier fabrics and thinner interfacing would be better for thinner fabrics. Why is a thick patch on light fabric best and a thin patch on heavy fabric best?