How to make holes in jeans – easy DIY knee-ripped jeans 

People make holes in jeans for more reasons than one –

• Some want to be seen as fashionable.
• Some want to be included.
• Then some others have had enough of the same old boring jeans and are looking for some way to make it different.
• Some are plain jealous of the designer-ripped jeans their friend bought for much more money than they have in their wallet right now or ever.
• Or maybe you are the ‘born to be rebellious one’ who always does what their mother told not to.

It is wonderful to be able to buy expensive super stylish ripped jeans ‘off the shelf’. But maybe you are like me – genetically programmed to DIY (the kind who would DIY an iPhone if they could).

I associated ripped jeans as a New Gen trend. It is not. It is a trend that started in the 70s that seems to have caught the imagination of people in a big way. All the punks and wannabe punks adopted the look of the worn, shredded ripped jeans as their own identity. Now every jeans lover has one or more or dreams of having one.

Making Ripped-jeans

The first method is to be that person who is so hardworking and so on your knees that your jeans develop natural holes – worn and ripped on their own from friction with the floor. This was the way it was done originally. People just wore their jeans to shreds, and the jeans took on beautifully natural rips and distress.

You may want to try this and may be after sometime  you would even fit into that smaller sized jeans you have in your cupboard after all the hard work -for those not in favour of this easy way try the harder method described below

How to make ripped-jeans with the white thread left behind

It is easy to make ripped-jeans; just use your sharp scissors to make cuts where you want them to be and put the jeans in the wash. The cut ends will fray naturally and you have beautiful ripped-jeans. Easy. But I like the look of jeans with the holes covered with white thread remaining in the denim. Let us see how to do this easily.

There are some tools necessary in your arsenal on your way to the perfect ripped-jeans – a tweezer, sharp scissors, a seam-ripper, and some patience. It also helps to have foot files, sandpaper etc for distressing.Checkout this post on the 15 different ways to distress jeans.

Start the work relaxed. You may ruin the jeans for good; having a relaxed mind helps, when this happens.

Step 1

Get a pair of old jeans . You can try this on a brand new one if you are brave enough but I would prefer the ‘worn-many -times’ ‘washed-many-times-jeans’ for the whole distressed look to look true.

I have used stretch jeans for this, so no problem with this. You can use stretch or nonstretch. Some denim has black color on the underside. I do not think it looks good. I think the white thread is better. You be the judge on this for your jeans. Good quality denim jeans will look stylish when ripped but a bad quality one ‘may’ end up looking tacky.

Step 2

Wear it and see where you want the rips to be .

Checkout the following photos for reference to decide where you can make the rips on.

This last one is abused jeans and it ought to go to the court. But to each his own.

Step 3

Take it off. Lay it out on the floor/ sewing table.

Fold the  jeans so that side seams lie stacked like the picture below

Step 4

Make 3 cuts 1/2 inch apart parallel to each other on the area you have marked earlier ; a 2 inch long cut would do.

Step 5

Remove two or three horizontal threads from the cuts with a tweezers or seam ripper.

Now prise the vertical threads ( blue ones) from these sections, carefully ( the white threads are quite delicate than the blue thread).

It is easy to pluck them with a tweezer. After the first few threads, it becomes very easy.

When the next section is also tackled, you will have a ripped-jeans on your hands. Do the same steps for other cuts you have made.

You may want to cut off some of the stray loosened threads or leave them as they are. 

Now that you have done your cutting and shredding you need to see to it that the holes will stay as they are and stop going any further. You can iron a small piece of interfacing to the two edges of the cut to stop further cutting open ( from the inside)

I have seen all kinds of ripped-jeans – with three people almost living-in-jeans in our home – every kind is acceptable other than this one here. But if you like the look, go ahead.

So  now, when you want to be seen as rebel/ubercool/fashionista you know what to do!

Related posts : If you have had enough of this trend, you may want to repair all the work you have done – here is a post on how to repair the tears on jeans.