Mending Jeans

The other day, I was working in the back room at work and the owner of a business 4 doors down from us asked what I was doing - hemming pants. I was working on my own, but I could find time to do some for her family. Her husband brought some in the next day. The seam had frayed out, could I fix that? A little fusible knit interfacing, serpentine stitch to hold the interfacing and frayed edges together, re-stitch the seam, re-do the top stitching, and he's absolutely delighted. Not only that, his father -in-law will bring me some of his pants. I used to do mending and alterations professionally. I stopped because I was injured in a wreck and couldn't sit down to sew. The pain was agonizing, but the lack of finding solace in sewing was almost as bad.

When my kids were little, I complained one day at church that my sewing was nothing more creative than patching the knees of my son's pants. I had always thought of such mending as a rather onerous task that had to be done. It wouldn't be a bit surprising if it was something my mother complained about doing, so I picked up on her discontent. One of the older women said,"Well, dear, you can be thankful you have the skills to do that instead of throwing them away." Talk about a wake up call! Her comment changed my perspective.

I have known people who find peace in ironing and even find great joy in a well ironed shirt. I can't imagine that I will ever feel that way about ironing! While I can't say that mending is one of the joys of my life, my perspective on it IS definitely different than it used to be. I used to patch knees with pieces shaped like puzzle pieces, and stars. I patched a hole my daughter made above a back pocket with a butterfly. It matched the butterflies I quickly freehanded with zigzag on the 6" I sewed to the bottom of the jeans she was too tall for. What I didn't think of was that one of the high school boys at church promptly dubbed her "Butterfly Butt". At least she still laughs about that.

I've been looking at crocheted things and denim bags on Etsy. Sunday afternoon, I went out the the storage unit with our son and dug out boxes of old jeans. I knew I was sick Friday morning, planned to spend the weekend being sick, so that wasn't exactly on my to-do list. But he was there to do most of the work. I had lost a pair of jeans our daughter sent me to mend - turns out it wasn't my fault; her brother grabbed them to use as padding for something. I'm not telling her they're found,just fixing and sending them back, along with another pair of her old jeans we found that need the same repair.

Tuesdays are my longest days at work, and work tends to have fairly long periods of dead time between busy intervals. I brought 4 boxes of jeans in this morning to sort through. One of the things I was looking for was some jeans in relatively good shape for our latest room mate. I don't know if 5 people in a 600 square foot, 3 bedroom trailer is crazy, or just is. The jeans are sorted into a box of donors, some that are OK, just too small for any of us, and two boxes I may be able to use for myself. Some of "my" jeans are khaki and tan. The problem with those colors is that my uniform shirts are dark polos, and that combo looks like Walmart's uniforms. I sometimes go into Walmart in the morning on my way to work for something, but I do not like being mistaken for a Walmart employee!

I've looked at blogs like Diane Ericson's, and the whole recycled, re-claimed, re-purposed trend in sewing and clothing and found myself almost laughing. Where have the rest of you been while I've been living in poverty and being creative with leftovers?