We're leaving for Colombia. Tomorrow. Why am I blogging right now? Because I spent half my day yesterday on this stupid project and I want someone to know about it.
I think everyone knows I hate shopping. I needed some travel pants, though. You see, when we went to India last fall for our honeymoon, it only took me half a day to realize every person there -- male and female -- was staring at my legs. I was wearing a cute little sundress, because hey, I hadn't seen my husband in six weeks and I thought he might appreciate seeing a little skin, even if it was blindingly white. I quickly realized, though, that the India women's saris went all the way down to their ankles. Whoops. Cultural faux pas on my part.
I don't know if Colombian women are all about the coverage, too, but I thought I'd better play it safe this time. I headed off to Goodwill to buy some cheap pants to make the journey south with me. The only problem? I'm an oompah-loompah, I guess. I couldn't find a single pair of pants that weren't way too long. The price was right, though, so I bought two pair and figured I'd hem them.
I've had a few bouts with Susie Homemaker Syndrome in the past. I don't know if it was Molly Ringwald and her homemade prom dress in Pretty in Pink or my jealousy of other girls' projects in 4-H or what, but I had grand delusions in high school that I could make my own clothes. I took freshman home ec., and while other girls were making shorts, I fashioned a jumper. Yeah. A jumper. Horribly uneven gathers and all, I wore that jumper to church repeatedly. Even worse? I made three more jumpers before I graduated. Not sure what the weird fascination with jumpers was, but I wore those things out in public. For real. (Later on in college I donated them to the clown closet at the summer camp where I worked . . . that's a little taste of how awful they were.)
I took another home ec. class my sophomore year: clothing. An entire semester dedicated to learning how to make your own clothes. I am not making this up. I spent weeks working on the most hideous pair of pleated pants you can imagine. We are talking MC Hammer-but-not-on-purpose pants. I beamed on the day I finished them, then triumphantly strutted to the closet Mrs. Fondroy had us use as a dressing room . . . only to find out, to my horror, that I hadn't used enough elastic in the waistband and I couldn't pull them up past my thighs. Needless to say, I did not get an A.
My delusions of homemade fashions-grandeur ebbed for a few years, only to come back during my senior year of college. Using some of that hard-earned camp counselor money, I went out and bought a sewing machine and some bold sunflower-printed fabric to make my sunflower-loving sister a Christmas present. The look on her face as she opened that gift did not express wonder at my even stitches; when she tried on the skirt, it definitely looked like a sunflower-covered tent. Later on I refashioned it into a tablecloth. Yeah. It was that big.
When I moved away from Colorado, I sold the sewing machine. It had been collecting dust in my closet for ten years and I was not interested in moving it again . . .
. . . which brings me to the dilemma of the too-long Goodwill pants. How could I hem them when I no longer had a sewing machine? I wasn't about to actually stitch them by hand. That would take forever.
I searched the web for no-sew hem ideas and found that lots of people recommended iron-on hemming tape. Easy peasy. I was in. But when I went to buy it, it was right next to a tube of Liquid Stitch.
Liquid Stitch! I had half a bottle of that sitting at home! I'd used it to make these little doosies for an ugly Christmas sweater party:
I know what you're thinking: can I borrow those for next year? The answer is no, since they didn't last the night. The Liquid Stitch held the tinsel on just fine, but the purple ornaments, hand sewn on, kept falling off on the bowling alley floor all night. I'm sure the owners loved us and our shattered purple balls. What does that tell you about my sewing skills? (And yes, there are lights on those shirts. They were pretty fabulous. I mean, with my track record for craftiness, I knew I had a great shot at creating the ugliest of ugly Christmas sweaters.)
So anyway, why buy hem tape when you can use the Liquid Stitch you've got sitting around at home? And also, why go to the trouble of trying on the pants again to measure how much needs to be hemmed when you could just compare them to a pair of pants you already like, right? So that's how I started this little Martha Stewart of a project.
I remembered using pins back in my home ec. days, so I stuck some pins in. Also, note here that the last time I bought second-hand pants that were too long, I just cut them off and didn't even bother hemming them. They've lasted like four years now, so whatever.
And then I was like, oh hey, I think the pins are supposed to hold the fabric where you want the hem to be, not just randomly stuck in the pants. I went to move them and found that I had pinned the pants to the comforter on my bed. I'm pretty sure I'll never get hired in a sweat shop.
When I pulled the pins out of my old sewing box, I also found this dandy little plastic six-inch ruler. It has a Bible verse on it and it says, "Lutheran Layman's League." I don't remember exactly when I acquired this important piece of sewing equipment, but I'm pretty sure it was a prize I won playing Bingo with my grandparents at the annual church picnic, sometime in the 1983-1987 time frame.So anyway, once I figured out how to pin the hems, I ironed for the first time in I don't know how long. If it's any indication, the ironing board cover is an Aztec-y kind of pattern, so back when Aztec-y was an acceptable home fashion trend is how long ago it was. Then I slathered on the Liquid Stitch and let it seal my no-sew hem. Awesome.
Don't you love how I'm showing you pictures and explaining the step-by-step process just like those Pinterest women who tell you how to do all sorts of awesome things that you pin to your page knowing full well that there's not a chance in the world you're ever going to make it? I know!!
Unfortunately, friends, this is where the photo-blog stops. Why? Because after the glue dried and I tried the pants on four hours later, my foolproof method of comparing vs. measuring left me with pants that were still too long. As in, two inches too long. As in, you've got to do this whole stupid process over again if you want to wear these pants without tripping on them too long. I had to wrestle that stupid ironing board back out of the closet and repeat the whole freaking process. I was cursing Goodwill and their cheap pants at that point.
I didn't bother trying them on again after fake hem number two. They're in the suitcase. I may look like I'm preparing for a flood as I walk around Colombia, but after all that work, I'm wearing the dumb things -- short, long, or in between.
So the final cost of my travel pants?
-- $4 per pair for a grand total of $8
-- Way more of my Saturday than I wanted to spend on this stupid project
-- One partially maimed plastic Lutheran Layman's League ruler (but I really think that's not bad considering I hadn't touched an iron in ten years and could have caused way more damage) but I wasn't using the centimeter side of it anyway
Next time I think I'll go back to the "just cut off the bottom" method. Happy Pinning!!
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