Patch Work

One of my quarantine goals was to patch up Mr. Andrew’s pants using the sashiko technique of visible repair. And now, 15 months later, I can finally say that I have begun to tackle this task. Heck, I’ve finished one pair!

Sashiko is a centuries old Japanese craft. In English, the word translates into little stabs. Usually, one would use white cotton thread on indigo fabric, but Mr. Andrew is a grey boy, so we made it monochromatic.

There were about five trousers that needed fixing but we used the most distressed pair of jeans to harvest material for the patches. I also removed the belt loops from the donor jeans and transplanted them to my Gitanos. As you may recall, I found some NOS ‘80s pants that has an elasticized waist band that had lost their stretch. First I tried to add new elastic, but that didn’t work.

My new concept was to add loops so that I could belt these jeans to keep them falling down. I was able to execute this vision with a woven belt I found at the at the Value Village earlier this week. The next step is to test it out with a long walk. Wish me luck.