Brother Sews Ambassador

My daughter lives in her leggings, and I’m always working on ways to make them last longer. No matter what fabric I use, she wears through the knees after a few months. I don’t mind sewing more leggings, as they are a super quick sew, but I recently wondered about reinforcing the knees as I was sewing a pair. This was my first attempt at adding reinforced knee patches before I sewed up the leggings. I’m thrilled with the results, and excited to share the tutorial with you today. Super cute right? Want to make a pair? {or ten?} Let’s get started sewing. Here’s what you will need for this project.

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Heart Knee Patches Supply List:

• Legging Pattern. I used my free legging pattern here.
  
• Four way stretch legging fabric
• Contrasting knit fabric for heart patches and matching thread
• Lightweight fusible interfacing
• Brother Sewing Machine

Start by cutting out your leggings and the heart patches. As mentioned above, I used my legging pattern and then cut heart patches without a template. The hearts are about 2” x 3” and you can cut any size or really any shape you want. Cut hearts and fusible interfacing to match. Fuse the interfacing to the back of the heart. Lay out one legging leg and find the front side. Each leg piece has a front and a back. Identify the front and then also mark where the knee will hit {my pin below} If you aren’t sure of the exact location, you can measure from ankle to knee on your child or use another pair of pants and see where the knee wear marks are.


Place the heart over the knee marking and leave a seam allowance on the inseam side of the legging. You can fold the leg in half to find the front side of the legging and then center the heart on that side. Pin the heart in place.


Repeat with the heart on the other leg.


Use a close zig zag to stitch the heart to the legging fabric. Be careful not to stretch the legging fabric as you sew for best results.


If you have some slight puckers around the sewing you can steam press to set and smooth the stitches.





Sew the curved crotch seams on front and back to sew the legs together. Fold right sides together and then sew the inseam from one ankle to the other. Hem and add elastic to finish, or follow the instructions on your legging pattern.


So cute right? I love how these turned out, and they seem like they will do a great job to prevent holes and keep those leggings looking great.



Want to add knee patches to leggings that are already sewn? The easiest way is to use directional sewing on your Brother Sewing Machine to sew a square patch on a legging leg.


Check to see if your machine can sew side to side as well as front and back to make legging patching easy. My Essence VM5200
has this feature and I love it. I used the zig zag to attach simple square patches to my leggings.


Slide the legging leg right onto your machine and then sew forward, sideways, backwards and sideways to easily attach the patch to the leg. It’s easier to add the patch before sewing the leggings is way easier, but this is an option for those leggings with holes that you need to last longer.


CLICK HERE FOR PDF!