As a general contractor, my clothes take a lot of abuse over the course of a day. To get more use out of a new pair of pants, my wife stitches large padded patches to the knees, as shown in the drawing. This also makes me much more comfortable when I’m kneeling on cold, damp concrete floors.
She uses bonded batting (used for quilts) as the padding, and twill for the patch. Two 8-in. by 13-in. patches cover padding that measures 7-1/2 in. by 12-1/2 in. She centers the padding on the patch, folds the sides of the patch and straight-stitches perimeter edging. Then she rips out the inseams of the legs to make it easy to sew on the patches. The patches are postioned so that they extend about an inch above the kneecap, and they are attached to the pants with a zigzag stitch.
Paul Arena, Rome, NY
