A Stitch in Time

Sometimes I think the Universe is laughing at me. Just last week I was remarking to a friend about how, for the first time ever, Luke and Jaz are getting close to out-growing some of their pants before wearing through them. Generally Luke and Jaz have grown rather slowly and I tend to buy their clothes big anyway, so usually their clothes reach the "unwearable" stage well before they're actually too small. Clearly, saying something like this outloud is just an invitation for a jinx, and by yesterday afternoon, 4 of the boys' 8 pairs of pants were piled up next to the sewing machine, in desperate need of repair.


Often when the boys have ripped through the knees of their shorts or pants in the past, after letting them continue to wear them for a couple of months and then declaring them "simply too ratty looking for public," I have said, "oh, I'll fix these another day," and tossed them into a pile in my sewing room. And then eventually, months later, I have come across them and instead of mending them, simply tossed them in to the trash.

But, since I'm all about trying to walk the talk these days, this time I decided that I actually would mend the boys' clothes, rather than toss and replace them. So while Luke and Jaz were at a playdate yesterday afternoon, and my wife was absorbed in her vampire books,


and Zeben was happily playing in the water table (melted snow turned out to be even more fun to play with than solid snow),


I got to work. And, while my mending didn't turn out perfectly by any means (I think maybe I need a new attachment for my sewing machine . . . a walking foot perhaps?), the boys' ripped pants have now been restored to wearability, and I think they will at least last until they're outgrown.

I started out ambitious and made (or attempted to make)
a cute little alien patch for the knee of these pants.

Then I moved on to plain patches.
Both knees were totally destroyed on these pants.

Patching turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be, at least with the limitations of my sewing machine. Also, the knees of the boys' pants were all puckered, not flat, and they were all lined, which made sewing patches on even tricker. So after the first two pairs, I abandoned patching, and just stuck with my friend the zig zag stitch.

before

after

These pants were kind of shredded at the knee, but a few rows of zig zag, sewing the outer layer to the lining, worked well. It's kind of a funky look, but totally acceptable according to me:


As I was sewing, I kept thinking about how mending is something that people (namely women, I suppose) have been doing for centuries, but how it's kind of become a lost art in today's world. How many people actually mend their clothes these days? And maybe that's just the beginning of where our problems as a culture begin. So, now I am comitted to improving my mending skills from here on out. And if I can just improve my stain-removal skills at the same time, we'll never have to buy clothes for Zeben again.