My husband has a bad habit of leaning against things at work. When he sits at his desk, he props his left elbow on the table as he works. This would be fine, except for one thing. I don’t know if there are stray dragon spikes laying around his office or elbow-stealing gnomes lurking around every corner. But whatever the reason, he always comes home with a hole in the sleeve of his shirt on the left elbow. It drives me crazy, especially when he put a hole in the nice sweater he wears to work.

 

But have no fear. Elbow patches are here!

 

Add some snazzy elbow patches to shirts and sweaters for a sophisticated look that will also (hopefully) prolong the life of any garment.

 

 

Supplies:

  • Pitiful holey sweater
  • Scissors
  • Needle
  • Thread
  • Scrap fabric (old T-shirt)
  • Iron (optional)

 

Look at this. How does this even happen? I suppose, I shouldn’t talk since this is pretty much what the knees on every pair of jeans I own looks like. Oh, well. Time to fix it!

 

If you are just sewing elbow patches on and there isn’t a hole in the sleeve yet, skip down to Step 4. Steps 1-3 run through how to add an inside patch to prevent the hole from getting bigger.

 

1. Turn the sleeve inside out. Then measure a piece of scrap fabric so it is larger than the hole.

 

 

2. Fold over the edges of the fabric and sew into place. You can use an iron to flatten them before sewing if you would like.

 

3. Place on inside of sleeve to cover the hole and sew into place.

 

Beautiful!

 

4. Now for the outside patch. Cut a piece of scrap fabric to the desired size. Ideally, it will cover the entire elbow. Most patches are ovals or rectangles, but I have seen some cool heart-shaped ones as well. The choice is yours. Put the sweater on and hold the patch to it to figure out the best size and shape. Cut the fabric so it is slightly larger than you want the final patch to be.

 

5. If you are putting patches on both elbows, cut out both before sewing them on so you can make sure they are roughly the same size and shape.

 

6. As with the inner patch, fold the edges inward and sew into place, using an iron if you wish. Then put the sweater on again to figure out the placement of the patches.

 

7. Finally, sew the patches into place.

 

Now you are ready to go off any fight dragons and their fiery breath or whatever it is people do to get holes in their sleeves.