Several years ago (probably over 5, really can't remember) a friend's dog chewed up my favorite pair of Tom's just enough to where I could not wear them. I hadn't had them long, so I was furious... but I couldn't stay too mad at the cute furry butt that did the crime. For years I've asked some crafty friends about how to fix them, and they were even in the possession of a friend who swore she could do it (she couldn't, so didn't) and my mother who said she would take them to a repair shop for many months.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I finally had to come to the realization that my favorite jeans, what I called my hippie jeans, were just too worn to wear anymore. Holes appeared in places that couldn't be patched and would risk public embarrassment... and we can't have that. Oh, no. But I couldn't just throw them out, and my scrap material storage space is growing super small. Then it hit me: I could use some pieces from them to patch up my long holey Tom's!!!
Sadly, for many months the crafty bug left me and all my crafty stuff was truly neglected, including the jeans and my beloved Tom's... until tonight.
Unfortunately, taking before pictures slipped my mind. But I am pretty sure this is just step one in a process that mainly requires the glue to dry. Fun note, I used the wood glue I had handy to glue the denim in place. I did have some outside inspiration a while back, though. I read a blog, not sure which one or where I saw it, that had a tutorial on the patching of the toe part of a pair of Tom's.
As you can see from the pic, the right shoe got the worse of it. The toe area had a couple of good holes in it, and the part that would go over the top of the heel was chewed out to the point of it not staying on. The left shoe had minimal damage, but still needing patching on the heel. I'm using clothespins to hold the denim in place while the glue dries, but they didn't fit for the toe so I had to hold it... and scrub glue off my hands. Definitely not a problem. Just wish the clothes pins would go a bit farther to hold more of the denim to the heel area.
I do plan to trim some of the excess denim off, and possibly have to patch them up a bit more. For all I know the whole thing will be a waste of time and supplies and the patches will just fall off, but I do plan on reinforcing with something (stitches, idk yet) once I get the patches in place. So we will see!
