Leaf Patch for Jeans - free pattern!

My comfy old jeans have for some time now been relegated to wearing only while gardening or cleaning the house. They recently got a hole in the knee, but because there’s still life left in them, I’ve patched them.

I made the leaf template/pattern myself by scanning a leaf I found in a park, then tracing over the image in Adobe Indesign. Feel free to download the attached jpg (simply click on the image and copy/drag to your desktop) to use for yourself - its scaled to fit an A4 page.

Patching is a great way to use up your favourite scrap fabrics, and you can pretty much use any fabrics (ok, probably not chiffon!) - simply fuse lighter weight fabrics to give them more body, and if you do this before you cut them out, you halve the amount of cutting you’ll need to do.
Using heavy duty machine thread in a contrasting colour, attach upper leaf bits to lower leaf bits using a zigzag stitch on a regular sewing machine. I set the stitch length fairly short (2 on my Elna) and the stitch width at the widest setting (4 on the Elna) because I still wanted it to look like zigzag, but be tight enough so the fabric wouldn’t fray too much.
 

Make it easier to attach patches to the jeans by splitting open the side seam (the one with no top-stitching).
(At this stage, I put a patch on the back to make it super strong for kneeling down in the garden, etc, but you can skip this bit.)
 

Hand baste the patches in place. Once your happy with the placements, zigzag around the whole outside, then zigzag any raw edges inside to complete the leaf shapes.
Finally, re-sew the side seam, and enjoy!

Time = 3 hours approximate.
Let me know how you get on - I’d love to see your results!