I have quite a few pairs of pants that E has blown the knees out of and I'm wondering if anyone has any great idea for what to do with them? I usually hand down all his clothes to a friend and I'm struggling with throwing a whole big stack away. Any craft ideas, or is there anywhere that recycles jeans?
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I patch them. Lorelei loves Totoro, so I've done a ton that way. Sometimes for smaller holes I just darn them with some thread. You could try using a fabric glue like fabri-tac and hand sewing the edges.
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@Mrs. Twine: I tried the iron on patches and they fell off after one wash
I'll have to sew them on this year, since I'm sure he'll wear through all his knees again. He's outgrown all of these pairs. I usually pass down all his outgrown stuff and don't want to just trash these. But I'm coming up empty I the crafty/repurposing front.
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H&M takes stuff like this and recycles the textiles! You get a $5 coupon...
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Make them into shorts? This blog has several good tutorials on making pants/jeans into shorts. ( http://www.makeit-loveit.com). I'm doing that right now with my daughter's jeans that are too short.
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Our town has bins at each school for textile recycling. The schools earn money for each pound of old clothes or other fabric items.
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If you sew, add them to your fabric stash and wait for inspiration! My mom recently made stadium quilts for our sports guys using denim on one side and fleece in the team colors on the back. They're super cozy and the denim is a great wind break for really chilly game days.
I've also used denim layered with other fabric to make potholders.
You can also hold onto old pairs to make patches for the inevitable rips in the pairs that fit now. -
If they're cloth (like leggings), I just cut off the bottoms and she wears them as PJ shorts.
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@tinyperson: I didn't know they did this, awesome! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
@LindsayE: I think I'll probably hold on to a few for future purposes, but I don't know that I have ten pairs of pants worth of future purposes, lol.
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It's not worth it to me to save the pants my son has blown through on the knees...but I will say it only happens on a few pairs at the very tail end of the season. I do think the reason is that I buy pants that are lined, so they kind of already are double reinforced.
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@looch: I'm not really concerned with saving them to use as clothing... I just didn't want them to end up in a landfill.
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@kiddosc: I still put them in the textile donation bins, but now that I am reading that, maybe that's a no-no?
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@looch: I did some more googling this morning and found out that the donation bin people do recycle the non wearable stuff. Or at least certain bins do. I had no idea, I thought those bins were only for wearable clothes.
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@kiddosc: my understanding is that they weed out the stuff that is wearable/usable and then the other stuff is sold for filling. They shred it but I am unclear on what it's used to stuff.
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@kiddosc: I believe this is the collection company at our schools. Has some good info!
http://baystatetextiles.com/in-the-news/not-too-shabby-most-old-clothing-can-be-recycled/ -
@looch: I saw that it's sometimes used for insulation, cleaning up spills, and cleaning clothes too
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@skipra: This is great information! I was definitely one of those people that only thought that those boxes were for resale quality stuff.
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Some stuff mostly shirts I will cut into small squares as cleaning rags.
You could also maybe think about a pet shelter? I think sometimes they use old fabric to stuff pet beds with?
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DS has done that to his best pants. I considered patching them until he pointed out that his best friend's mom wears her jeans like that. Good point... guess he'll just look fashionable if I don't fix them
@Mrs. Twine: that's so cute!!!
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Hey, @Mrs. Twine: I feel like I haven't seen you on HB for ages, hope you and your family are well!
I'll have to sew them on this year, since I'm sure he'll wear through all his knees again. 
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