Follow-up to the angry jeans posting!

Lest everyone think I am an angry, bitter hag who holds clothing designers responsible for my genetics, I just want people to know that I am nothing if not resourceful. Unwilling to shop ANYWHERE for my jeans besides Abercrombie, because my loyalty to their Madison Flare style borders upon obsession, I went ahead and bought a pair in their "Regular" length. I got them home and after whining on the phone to my mother-in-law about them while calling her for sewing advice (about another project), I invented a crazy, and stupid, but nonetheless effective, method of hemming said pants.

Normally I don't recommend hemming jeans yourself, especially if you're a semi-novice seamstress like me. And indeed, even when I've had jeans professionally hemmed in the past, they've always ended up looking absolutely retarded afterwards. Hemming a pair of flare jeans is even harder because if you cut the bottoms off, you inevitably lose some of the flare, which makes them look disproportionate, and then when you hem them, the stitching never looks right (or even close to what the bottoms looked like before).

So, here's the story of my adventure with my newfangled method of hemming jeans.

First, I accordion-folded the bottom of the jeans, maybe taking up about 3/4 of an inch, and lining up the bottom of the folded piece with the bottom of the inside lining. Then I pinned it and pressed the hell out of it with the iron. Then I tried them on, with every pair of shoes I own, to make sure they didn't drag on the ground even with my lowest heels.

While doing this for the new pair of black suede pumps I bought from Macy's, I accidentally stepped on one of the pins, which then went ALL THE WAY INTO MY FOOT, and while I screamed and yelled and swore thereby making my neighbors think someone was being murdered in my house, I tried to weigh my options: Do I pull it out, risking the bottom of the pin breaking off and remaining lodged in my foot, which will force me to go to the hospital to get it removed? Do I leave the pin where it is, go to the hospital, and let them take it out? Or do I slowly yank it out and hope for the best? Do I then sue Abercrombie, because it's their fault I have to hem my pants in the first place (I quickly discarded this option - I've watched enough Law and Order to know that no judge on earth would even ALLOW that case to be argued in their courtroom. Although, this is the country of the idiot who sued McDonald's for not warning them about hot coffee, so I guess it's a possibility and maybe I had a shot, but still.) I went with the third option. The pin came out relatively easily, and with very little blood, and although the bottom of the pin DID break off, it didn't break off under my skin, thankfully. I sat down on the floor and cried, more out of shock than pain, before limping into the bathroom, slathering my foot with Neosporin, and applying 295729 Band-Aids (if you ever come visit, you will be amused to note that we have a stock of Band-Aids and a tube of Neosporin in almost every room of the house, because of Psycho Cat. She'll maul you in any room, if you piss her off - she doesn't discriminate).

Once that fiasco was over, I returned to my guest room/"art studio" to continue my annoying sewing project for the afternoon. I sewed all around the bottom of the accordion-folded hem of my jeans, then I folded the top under and sewed that (I can't really explain this properly, I'd have to show you in person). It actually looked pretty decent, the flare stayed in because I didn't actually cut off any of the fabric, and they fit ok with my shoes. I pinned up the other leg last night while watching a comparatively boring new episode of SVU, and I'll probably try to sew it tomorrow. So, basically, the score now stands at Grace: 1, Abercrombie: 0. While I do feel a certain regret that I had to pin and sew $70 jeans, I feel like it's a small price to pay for still being able to wear my favorite style. Now, if I could only remove the smell of Abercrombie cologne which permeates every fiber of denim...they really need to stop spraying that shit all over the store!

BTW, for anyone who is wondering, Josephine the spider is still alive and well, despite the increasingly cold temperatures (and the snow!) She has been hanging out in her upstairs room more often lately, but she came down two nights ago to fix her web and have some dinner. Only time will tell how she weathers the rest of the fall, but for now she's doing ok.