Beautiful Sole

Okay so mending March has started to pick up (about time since we’re over halfway through!) I’ve now mended Julius’ comforter, a pair of Julius’ pants, a mushroom hairstick, a Christmas ornament, a beloved fridge magnet, a beautiful maternity shirt that I thought would be better mended for the thrift store rather than sent to the scrap heap, a remote control and, if you count it, ceiling tiles.  (Though I really just replaced those so not sure that counts.)  I have a LOT of things left to mend.  The problem with mending is that it is a never ending process.  For instance today Patricia went to school with a perfectly good shirt and came home with a shirt with a huge set of holes in it.

I’ve also found that a large amount of my solid colored long and short sleeved shirts have frayed hems or have developed small holes in them all over the place.  The holes are usually along the seams making it very difficult to mend.  I had a bunch of those on my list to fix, but I’m starting to think they will NOT be worth it.  People talk all the time about fast fashion vs. quality clothing and how fast fashion has invaded the thrift shops.  What I don’t know is what brands are actually considered good quality?  I never used to pay much attention to clothing brands, but that also means I don’t understand what to look for in high quality clothing.  For instance a lot of socks I bought for Will were what I considered “name brand” but they are total garbage.  I was so sick of Will going through like a pair of socks a week that I invested in some crazy expensive brand of wool socks called Darn Tough.  They have a lifetime warranty so I don’t mind paying more up front.  Honestly I’d pay a premium for all my clothes to come with a lifetime warranty!  If anyone has suggestions of some great brands that last and have cotton long and short sleeved solid colored tees let me know!

Oh speaking of socks, I have to tell you all the sock incident.  I have apparently never posted about the original sock incident because it was so long ago it pre-dates the blog.  That and it was almost a marriage ending saga (joking, mostly).  The sock incident is very simple.  I used to own a bazillion pairs of those cheap novelty socks that people seem to love.  I hated them.  They are cheap and deform when you put them on and slouch or wiggle around in your shoes.  And they have almost no padding.  They are awful.  (Note:  I am really a glutton for punishment because I kept self declared awful socks until 2 years ago when I decided enough was enough and I sent them all to the textile recycling bin.) In addition to these awful novelty socks I also had about 4 pairs of really great socks (honestly not as great as the Bombas I have now, but it was a different time in my life).  Anyway I noticed that my really-great socks had been starting to fit not-so-great lately.  I thought maybe they were going the way of the other cheaper socks and I was saddened.  And then I caught Will wearing my socks.  My really-great socks.  I have large feet for a woman of my stature (apparently) and I wear a women’s size 8-8.5.  That’s like a 7 in men’s.  Will has large feet. He wears a size 12 in men’s.  You may have noticed that there is a 5 size difference between my foot size and his foot size.  The mystery of the warped socks was solved but I was FURIOUS that Will had ruined my really-great socks.  From Will’s side of the story I’m sure he will tell you that he didn’t even realize they were my socks and that I brought up him wearing my socks way too many times (I did).  An embarrassing number of times (I was really mad about those socks).  I brought it up so many times in fact that Will finally told me we could never talk about the sock incident again.  So I mostly didn’t.  Until last week.

Last week I caught Will wearing a pair of my socks again.  My really, really great socks that I got for Christmas.  (I know what you’re thinking, “why does she care so much about socks”.)  For some reason the socks were mismatched, but I knew they were mine because in pink writing one of them said “I am beautiful”.  Okay, maybe he could have believed this was his sock.  Will is beautiful; a beautiful man with a beautiful soul.  But the other sock said “I am a great mom”.   I know he doesn’t identify as a mom so the jig was up!  I said “don’t you remember the sock incident”.  His response was that he has no socks left and these were in his drawer.  Well I let it go, but then Friday he was wearing a pair of my BOMBAS.  The crème de la crème of socks!  I did not murder him.  I instead took the high road and ordered Will 6 more pairs of Darn Tough socks for him to try to destroy.  (To Will: Surprise! They were finally shipped today so hopefully you get them for PAX.)

Mending March might make for some boring tutorials so let me show you a cute one I did.  Julius is constantly getting holes in his pants.  I’ve been struggling to figure out what to patch with because I usually try to match the material I’m patching, but it doesn’t always hold up (or will sometimes require more work to finish the patch to prevent unraveling or fraying itself).  Some folks said wool felt was a great patching medium since it doesn’t fray so I decided for the next few patching jobs I’m going to use felt and see how it goes.  I just so happen to have way more felt than I can ever use in my lifetime, so I grabbed a scrap of red felt and got to work!

Note: this rip is about 1/2″ wide on the unstitched side and 1″ long total. Another side note, I do not remember adding those stitches on the left side, was it Julius?

Monster Patch

What you need: 

• A torn pair of kid’s pants
• thick red felt (mine probably isn’t wool)
• thread to match the pants
• white embroidery thread
• black embroidery thread

1. Cut out a patch to fit 1/2″ in all directions beyond the hole/tear.  Place patch on side of pants, covering the hole.   Pin.  (Note:  you may want to open the hole slightly so some of the red is coming thru.)
2. Using the matching thread, stitching around your patch, 3/8″ from the tear with very fine stitches.
3. Stitch two white eyes (in a size proportional to your mouth/rip) using a satin stitch.
4. Add French knot pupils in black (unless rip is huge, then use another satin stitch.)

I wasn’t sure Julius would like him because the monster is a bit derpy (I’m not a great hand embroider-er.)  Well Julius told me after school today that he doesn’t like it he LOVES it.  So I would say that’s a win!

1. Oh and I’m on my 7th loaf of sourdough.