Best way to patch a big hole in work pants

This sewing tutorial will teach you how you can patch a big hole in work pants by opening up the seams, even if they have top stitching.

These pants have a large hole and several worn out areas. Now, you could use the simpler method that I show in this tutorial, fixing all the different spots with separate patches. But I wanted to show another, much more involved method. We are going to open the pants up before doing the mending and then sew them back closed at the end. The reasons you might want to do it this way are:

• The holes/areas needing repair are extremely big and need a lot of stitching, which is awkward with the pants closed
• If you have fabric that almost matches, you could replace sections
• The pants have a hole in the middle of the leg and need to be opened up to access it

Honestly, doing little patches that crossed over seams just kind of felt sloppy and less thorough to me, so that’s why I started doing it this way. It’s also satisfying and kind of fun!

Supplies and materials

• Sewing machine
• Heavy duty needle (I used 90/14)
• Scrap fabric
• Thread
• Scissors
• Pins
• Seam ripper
• Paper
• Chalk and pen

Preparing the pants

Step 1 – Trim your frayed edges away

Step 2 – Place pins 1 inch past where you will be stitching to (which needs to include stitching at least 1/2 inch past the holes). These pants have a gusset, so there’s a little more to take apart, but you will be using the same basic steps whether your pants have a gusset or not. You can see my pin on the back seam and 2 on the leg seams, 1 inch past where the gusset ends.

Step 3 – Seam rip… it’s not as bad as you would think! We’re going to take apart our seams in the same order that they went together, so take a look and you will be able to tell by which seams are on top. As you’re taking them apart, take note of the order they were put together and what the seam allowance is. Most work pants will have multiple rows of top stitching, which are actually chain stitches. They will probably also have flat felled inseams (which have an uneven seam allowance, so take note if that’s the case).

How to take apart chain stitches

Chain stitches are a lot easier to take apart than you might think. First, cut all the strings on the right side, just inside of where you pinned to. Then turn the pants inside out and do the same. In the picture below, you can see the underside of the chain stitches and where I cut them. I then pulled one of the strings and the whole thing just pulled away. The tricky part is knowing which string to pull. They only pull from one direction, and even if you know the right way, it can be hard to really see. So I just experiment from both ends. All the rows on a seam will go the same way, so once you’ve got one figured out the others will be easier. Then pull the thread from the right side off.

All taken apart, that wasn’t so bad! The gusset might not look too worn in this picture, but it was, so I also planned to patch it.

Preparing the patches

Step 4 – We need to make a pattern piece for our patch. I drew a curved line of the area I wanted to cover. Then I put a piece of paper inside and used a pin to make holes along the curved line and along the two open seams.

**If you were planning on completely replacing this area with a matching piece of fabric, you would do the same thing, but also make a seam allowance along the curved line. Then cut out your section, leaving a seam allowance. Cut your piece and sew it on!

Connect your dots to make your pattern piece and cut it out.

Step 5 – Cut your pieces out. You need two pieces, plus one gusset if your pants have it.

Attaching the patches to the pants

Step 6 – Pin your pieces to your pants and sew around the perimeter.

Here is from the right side. The perimeter is sewn, but I left some pins in the middle just to make sure the fabric really stayed in place.

Step 7 – Sew long zigzags, with pants right side up, focusing on the holes and most worn areas. I went crazy over my hole so that I could cover up my unmatched fabric. I also meant to sew my zigzags the same way on both sides, but completely got them the opposite ways, haha. Here is from the inside. I also sewed a patch on the front, below the fly.

Putting the pants back together

Step 8 – Now we can start putting our pants back together. Work in the reverse order that you took them apart. First, I sewed the back seam together. Because of the top stitching, you can’t quite get all the way to where you took apart, so there will be a small hole. But that’s ok because the next step is to top stitch, and that will take care of the hole.

Step 9 – Top stitch, one seam at a time. So I just sewed the back seam and then I topstitched that same seam. I used the same thread, not actual top stitching thread. I also sewed back and forth across the original lines of top stitching at the top to secure them.

Repeat on remaining seams

Repeat steps 8 and 9 on remaining seams. Here I clipped my gusset to the back of the pants, sewed it on and then top stitched.

Now I have the gusset pinned to the front. (You can also see the patch I did below the fly.) Because this was a flat felled seam, the seam allowances were different. I was not going to flat fell so I just pinned them together unevenly, and sewed as if the extra length wasn’t there. It would have made sense to just trim the excess off before pinning.

Then I top stitched. This part is the most awkward. Have your pants turned inside out and sew on the right side. It’s definitely not impossible. But because it’s so awkward, I just do 2 lines of top stitching. That’s still 3 rows of stitching all together so I think it’s fine. I start on one side and go back and forth across the original top stitching to secure it, then sew along the seam, then go across the other side to secure the original top stitching, then along the seam again to where I started.

And your pants are all patched up!

Yay, all done!

Kind of a lot of work, but so satisfying and these pants are still my husbands favorite pair that he wears more days than not! What about you? Do you have a pile of clothes waiting to be mended? Let me know if you try this method to patch a big hole in some pants!