I'm not sure what it was that reminded me of this story, but I thought this was a good teaching moment for those of you who wish to alter your own clothing with no formal training or good analysis into what you are going to do.
It takes place in maybe 2000 or 2001. I know I am showing my age by telling this story, but it's okay. I was a Sophomore in college at the time. I was studying at a small private University in Central Illinois and I had no car and no money. I was your cliche college student living off of cereal and easy mac trying to avoid the cafeteria food I felt was either horrible for you, or horrible tasting. Plus, and this is a devious admission, I knew that if saved all of my allotted meal plan money until the end of the semester, it would roll into my student account. This meant I could buy groceries at local stores or eat at fun restaurants that accepted the student account card.
In any case, on one particular morning before one of my Psychology courses I decided I was fed up with my jeans looking like mom jeans and wanted them low slung, like what was popular at the time. This was the day of N'Sync and Britney Spears, so of course I wanted that look. Well, in any case, I had seen a Mariah Carey video the night before in which her jeans were low slung, but only because the top piece of fabric that had the button was cut off. I figured, how easy is that, I can make that change too! I got my scissors out and began cutting along the seem. I cut to right where the zipper meets the job of the pants. As I put on my newly recovered surgery jeans, I felt confident with my alteration. My outfit was more stylish and comfortable and I was set for class.
I do have interject on my own story though and say if you are a younger girl with a curvy body, consider yourself lucky. It was a bad time for curvy girls when I was in high school and college, especially if you were short. I had the issue of pants fitting, but the rise was too high. If the rise was right, the pants didn't fit in the butt because I am curvier. The fabric would stretch across the butt, but then it wouldn't button right pulling across my stomach even though it fit my thighs properly. In other words, I wasn't proportioned for the body style that was in style.
So, in any case, walked the short way to class and had a good class, but on the way back is when things went awry. I was walking home with a friend and noticed a small shiny thing fall into the grass. As I turned to look at it, I could see the sun reflecting off of it in the grass, but figured it was an earring. As I checked both ears and my neck to ensure my necklace didn't fall off I realized I was fine and continued to walk. Just then I could feel my pants starting to get looser around my waste. As I went to lift my jeans I realized just what happened. In performing my jeans procedure I had not left a piece of fabric to stop the zipper. This meant that if the zipper was given the chance, it could fall right off of the top of my pants. My pants had no means for staying shut and I was just screwed. I had to tie my sweat shirt around my waste to hide the fact my pants were unzipped and keep one hand at my waste so they wouldn't fall off. I was mortified as I looked around to see if anyone else was noticing. As I told my friend what had happened she erupted into a roaring laughter telling me that I just discovered the reason I shouldn't do those things to my clothing. I was so upset. When I got home I had to throw them out. It was funny once I looked back at what I had done, but of course it was embarrassing as it was happening.
So, let this be a lesson to you! If you are going to be your own tailor, make sure you plan your project ahead of time. Ensure that zippers and buttons are secure. Ask questions and do research, and for goodness sake, use the common sense I recklessly abandoned that day. Happy sewing!
No comments:
Post a Comment