Patch worn-through trousers [Fix of the Month, June 2012]

My 11-year-old ripped a hole in the knee of his favorite trousers, which he wears about 5 days a week. I ironed on a patch as usual, but those iron-on patches don't stay on - the edges lift up and eventually the whole thing comes off unless you painstakingly sew all around the edges. 

Instead, I mixed up some sugru to match the color of the pants, rolled it into thin snakes, and smoothed it around the edges of the patch to bridge the patch-to-trousers transition area all the way around. I smoothed the surface with wet fingers to make it merge well. The color is a better match than in this picture - the flash brought out more green in the sugru than you can see with regular light. 

I did this about 3 weeks ago and the trousers have been through the wash about three times with no change at all in how well the sugru is working. Yay! Ellen