My kids tear their clothes like it is going out of fashion. I’m constantly finding scuffed-up knees on their jeans, torn tops and unexplained holes on the seats of their pants! The fact is: kids are always going to tear their clothes. And while the ripped jeans look has never been my thing, I am just not willing to throw clothes away anymore.  So I have started patching their clothes, just like in the good old days.

I am not any good at making an invisible patch like my grandmother used to make, so I’ve decided not to even try and instead make a statement with my patches. I actually reckon it should be called customising not patching! Here’s what you’ll need:

-Fabric scraps
-Some Thermobind (which you can get in most haberdashery shops or departments, its like an iron on double-sided sticky tape for fabric)
-A couple of cute designs (my kids are lucky enough to have a dad who is an illustrator  and sketched these little shapes in 2 minutes)
-A pen
-A pair of scissors

Print out the shapes (above) and cut out. Cut out a piece of fabric roughly the size of the patch needed and cut a piece of Thermobind a little bit smaller. Iron on the Thermobind as instructed on the pack. Put the shape on the paperside of the Thermo and trace around it (I normally pin them down so that they don’t move around while I am tracing).  Cut out the shape.

The patch is now ready to be ironed over your hole. It is really quick and easy and “customising” is lot cheaper then buying new clothes all the time!

– Emilie