A pair of well fitting jeans are a great investment. Here are some tips to keep your jeans at their best.

For dark jeans, wash them inside out, on a short, cold cycle. You can use the “dark wash” soaps, to help keep them dark.  Woolite and Tide are two name brands.

If you want your jeans to fade, you can use a product from Rit Dye, called “Fast Fade”, or wash them with your usual laundry detergent, ¼ cup of fabric softener and a ¼ cup of bleach. Be careful when using bleach, if you splash it on your jeans, you’re stuck with a light spot, and it weakens the fabric as well. It’s better to wash them several times in a weak bleach solution, than one time in a strong bleach wash.

Weak and worn spots? Buy some tricot interfacing at the fabric store, and iron some patches on the WRONG side of the jeans. It will support and reinforce the fabric, and will make you jeans last longer.  I like the tricot interfacing, as it is soft and flexible and fuses well, though you may want to take some hand stitches around the edges of the interfacing on the wrong side, to hold it in place.

Mending: Coats and Clark makes “Denim Thread” which is a variegated blue, that is a real help when mending jeans – the thread seems to “melt” into the fabric, and if you sew a grid of thread over a worn area – it really strengthens the fabric.

Patching: When you have an actual hole, you will need some denim to back the hole. Before you throw worn pairs away, it’s a good idea to cut off a chunk of fabric to have for patching, and if you collect several shades of denim you will be grateful when you are patching your jeans. I like to pink the edges of the patches, as that is a way to cut down on bulk.  Find a piece of matching denim, and back your jeans with it, hand baste the patch in place, and then sew around the hole. If you are feeling funky, you can back the holes with contrast or print fabric.

Jeans Hems



Here is a “regular” pant hem – Coats and Clark makes a yellow-gold heavy thread, very similar to those used by jeans manufactures. This is an adequate hem.



If you want a worn look to a new hem, see how you can apply bleach from a bleach pen, in a pattern similar to wear marks on old jeans.



See how the bleach makes the bottoms of the jeans look old? Since it’s straight bleach, it damages the fabric, it will wear out much faster, and get a frayed and worn bottom edge quickly.

  Photos this page: James Keller