Yesterday I ripped my favorite pair of pajama pants. I was devastated. Do you have that one piece of clothing, that no matter how worn or used it is, you just love to pieces? That is my relationship with these pants. They are super comfortable to lounge around the apartment in, light enough to sleep in even in these hot Georgia summers, and I think they’re pretty dang cute, too. But I’m a klutz. As I walked through the doorway I skirted too close to the latch plate and my pants snagged the metal. The rest is history.

It didn’t even have the decency to be a clean, straight tear either. *grumbles under breath* My devastation didn’t last long, though. I come from a resourceful family. We didn’t just throw things out. We couldn’t afford to do that. Things got patched or fixed or repurposed. In the case of my pajama pants, the tear was just in the right position to become a pocket. And who doesn’t love pockets? Pockets are just about the most useful thing ever and it was a nicer solution than just sewing up the tear. Out came the sewing supplies.

I had some extra fabric leftover from an embroidery project so that worked out nicely. I also grabbed a needle and some thread. I don’t normally hand stitch projects; I’d much prefer a sewing machine but as it happens mine is seven hundred miles away in storage. Hand stitching has a silver lining, though. It was great practice as I haven’t done it in quite some time.

To begin the repair process, step one was addressing the fact this was an ‘L’ shaped tear. I stitched a quick seam along the bottom, horizontal part of the tear. The long, vertical part would become the pocket. Given the shorter nature of the tear I did have to cut up into the fabric to make it pocket length.

Step two was cutting, pinning, and stitching the pocket. I folded my piece of fabric in half, marked the length of the pocket opening, and drew the outline of the pocket. I cut the fabric and pinned each piece to each side of the opening. I finished this step by stitching along the dotted line.

I know, I know…my hand stitching isn’t terribly neat. But it’ll get the job done until I get my things out of storage. Anyway, we’ll move on to step three. I pinned the two pocket pieces together and stitched around the perimeter. Because my hand stitching isn’t super great I opted to finish the pocket off by stitching around a second time with a blanket stitch to reinforce the seam and to bind the edges.

And viola! The ugly tear is gone and has been replaced with a super useful pocket! I hope this tutorial has inspired you to fix a tear rather than toss the item out. What other creative solutions have you tried to fix a favorite piece of clothing?