Sit Lightly

I'm a guy, which means I'm not about to stop wearing a piece of clothing just because it has a hole in it. It may simply become 'working around the house' clothing, but I'm not about to throw a shirt away because one or two spots have worn out. By guy math, 94% of that shirt is still good. (I'm noticing more and more this is a gender thing. Girls want to throw away shirts the second they spot a hole.) Often how I make this decision comes down to the size and location of the rip. If it is small enough I can ignore it and if it is somewhere no one else should be looking than I can pretend it's not even there. But the hole is located somewhere I think it might become a problem, then I have no choice but to break out the needle and thread.

Lately this has been happening to my jeans a lot. When it comes to pants, I feel like as long as the space between the legs is in good shape than they can and should be saved. However, I like to wear my jeans a little baggy and a little low, which was the style a few years ago before skinny jeans came into our lives. As a result I find myself constantly pulling them up or down by the tops of the back pockets. This led to the jeans becoming frayed at the top corner of those pockets and over time those frayed areas become full-blown holes, which only got bigger the more I continued to wear my jeans. And for those of you keeping track, the tops of the back pockets would be one of those spots I feel like I can't ignore. Now, sewing the holes closed is a fairly straightforward process and, shockingly, more often than not my repair attempts come out pretty good. It is what comes after that which gets a little tricky.

When you are not a particularly strong sewer the first time you wear something you recently repaired can be pretty stressful. You are almost expecting to hear the tell-tale ripping noise with every move. If anything is accidentally dropped to the floor you find yourself wondering if it is worth the risk to pick it up, or if you should just leave alone and come back for it later. It is the same feeling you get the first time you attempt to either build or repair any kind of seat. You want to sit normally, but in the back of your mind you are just waiting for everything to literally fall out from under you. It is not fun because, let's face facts - there is no way you can comfortably sit without fully committing to the process. At some point you just have to put all your weight on it and hope you don't find yourself suddenly sitting on the floor.

The good news is that if you can make it through the first couple of days without tearing the repair job you just finished then you should be in the clear. Still, it will always be in the back of your mind. It does once again make me wonder why the people who make jeans don't use better stitching in some parts of their pants where it seems necessary. (And you have to figure they know exactly where those spots are). Until they do, I guess I'll just have to keep repairing my pants until they are more hole than jean. I just hope I'm never forced to sit in newly-repaired chair while wearing recently-sewn jeans. And if that is my only option I think I would rather just stand.