How to patch a hole in the knees of leggings

Morning everyone....hope all is good in your world.

Today I thought I would talk about a problem and solution for those holes that children get in the knees of their leggings, pants, trousers, jeans...whatever you want to call the item of clothing they wear on the lower part of their body that contains 2 legs  :o)

The little girl I look after is 6 years old, she lives in leggings (whatever the weather) and lately she is prone to falling a lot more than she used to and coming home with her bare knees peeping out through her clothes.

Now I realize these are thin items of clothing and one fall could ruin them but my boss asked me if there was something we could do to make them last a bit longer and asked if I was able to buy patches to put on them.
My one thought was that the patches you can buy are too heavy for the thin fabric that is leggings and the weight of them would pull down on the clothing .....so I suggested an alternative....hand made fabric patches.

Now I'm not saying this will last forever, hey one good fall and they'll start to wear but it's the one solution I thought fitting.  Here goes.

Here's what you'll need..
1 holy pair of leggings, pants, trousers, jeans. These were 'Jeggings' so had a bit more of a substantial feel than the thin cotton leggings...they were like a very stretchy thin denim.
Scrap fabric
Small sharp scissors
Permanent Iron on interfacing (the washable kind)
An iron

Exhibit A

 

 My 6 year old chose all the fabrics from my scrap pile and coordinated them with the various leggings we were mending.

I cut a rough piece of fabric, big enough to cover the hole, then I cut a piece of the interfacing and according to the instructions on the back of the package ironed them together so that they bonded.  When it was cool I cut out the exact shape that I wanted (or should I say she wanted) and peeled off the back of the interfacing.

Please excuse the lack of a manicure

Place your shape over the hole and iron onto the leggings (according to package instructions).  You may need to do the same on the inside of the legging if it's a big hole....I would recommend doing the inside first.

 

Somewhere underneath that iron is an elephant, I know....hard to believe!!!

VOILA!!!!

If you want to reinforce it even further I would hand stitch around the edges, a blanket stitch would be cute.

Here are the others we did that day.

I'm happy to report that the patches are still on the pants (for now) but if I was to do it again I would definitely hand stitch around the edges maybe with a contrasting thread, I think the grey hearts in the middle would look great with a pink or red embroidery stitch.