A little iron-on patch help, O Lounge Crafty-types?

[Robb]

My favorite jeans are developing a hole in the knee. I bought some iron-on patch thingies with some kind of glue (I assume) on one side.

My plan is to turn them inside-out and iron the patch on the inside, for a less dorky look. :D

But I'm afraid some of the glue will seep through the developing hole... and I will be affixing my jeans to the ironing board.

Is there something I can put on the ironing board to prevent this? :shrug:

[Ptah]

1. Iron them while wearing them. No ironning board problem. n/t

[Robb]

3. You're a freakin' GENIUS!

:rofl:

[hippywife]

2. Find a really neat

peace patch and sew it on. That will definitely look less dorky than any iron on patch. :hi:

[TorchTheWitch]

7. Good idea!

And I think you're right that a sewn on patch will be a much better result. If sewn on well, it would probably outlast the jeans. Why is it that the iron on patches these days seem so much more ineffective then the ones from when I was a kid??? Damn stuff is so stinking cheap these days.

[joneschick]

4. tin foil. really.

if you happen to have the non-stick, even better.

[Robb]

5. Thanks!

See, I knew someone would come to my rescue. :D

[TorchTheWitch]

6. Tinfoil is a great trick... BUT

Because of the fear you describe of the glue adhearing to whatever it is that it will be pressed against, in this case I would suggest instead of tinfoil to use a plain paper bag spritzed lightly with water. Otherwise you might end up having to pick bits of tinfoil off the jeans when you peel it off. If you go with the tinfoil, use the very thick heavy duty kind to try to avoid that, but I think in this case the paper bag trick might work better. Just use a regular supermarket grocery bag and cut or rip off a nice sized piece. Spritz it lightly with a spray bottle of water just before applying the iron, and use the steam setting on your iron... to really activate the glue, it needs a good dose of moist heat rather than dry.

All that said, the iron patch idea is not going to work well for your problem. A sewn on patch will work far better (and if sewn on well will probably outlast the jeans themselves). I've found the best patches are just a swatch of jean material from an old pair of jeans. I tend to keep the lengths I've wacked off from hemming jeans that were too long or the left overs from ones I've made into shorts for using as patches later. Most of my jeans are ancient and full of patches. I even have a pair that's almost nothing BUT patches (but they're so old and soft and comfy they're my favorite pair). I think you can actually buy precut pieces of denim at a fabric store to use as a patch if you don't have anything handy around the house already.

Hope that helps! :)

On Edit: Ooops! Almost forgot to add that that you should let the jeans cool well before peeling off the paper bag or tinfoil. Check while you're ironing that the glue from the patch isn't sticking to the paper or tinfoil too much, and if you think it is, spritz again with the water bottle. I'm not sure how big this hole is in the jeans, so I'm not sure how much of a problem the glue from the patch seeping through might be. All in all though, I really think you'd be happier in the end if you did a sew on patch... the iron on one isn't going to last long at all especially in the knee area.