We usually talk about food around these parts, but this is also a blog about frugality (or at least a valiant attempt at frugality!). And in that vain, I wanted to step out of the kitchen for a minute, as I do sometimes (like when I fixed my doorbell awhile back), and talk about other ways LeeLee and I save money by repairing things ourselves. Today’s tip? Mending clothes!
It wasn’t until recently that I really felt comfortable enough to mend my own clothes – and I admit, I’m still not a skilled seamstress at it. But I can do enough to get by, and if my handiwork makes my clothing last a while longer, then so be it!
For instance, recently one of my favorite pairs of jeans developed a hole in a most inappropriate spot – on the inside of my thigh! I noticed it while I was out birdwatching, of all places, and realized I was receiving a bit more ventilation than was normal from a pair of jeans. Once I got back to the car, I realized what had happened – my favorite birdwatching jeans had finally given way. This simply would not do! And I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel on what was otherwise a perfectly good pair of pants. So out came the patches!
When I was little, I was mortifiedat the thought of my mother patching up my clothes. Oh, how I fought against having to wear jeans with any sort of additional attention drawn to them! Now that it’s on my own dime, though, I see where Mom was coming from. So out came my sewing kit and my packet of $1.99 patches – that’s less than two dollars for about 10 small iron-ons! – and out came the iron, as well.
At least Youthful Hope wouldn’t have been too terribly embarrassed by this patch job – it was, after all, in a spot on the fabric where (I would hope!) the general public wouldn’t be looking anyway. :) After pressing the patch down firmly onto the hole for 45 seconds or so, I carefully removed the jeans from the ironing board and laid them on the bed to cool down. The patch was firmly secure as soon as the fabric was cool, and voila! My jeans were good as new.
I was so emboldened by this little feat that, while I had my sewing kit out, I decided to secure some buttons on several of my other pairs of jeans – buttons that were either hanging by a thread or were completely ripped off. One button never did turn up, so I simply ripped a similar button off of another pair of (sadly, too-small) jeans and sewed it onto a pair I was interested in wearing. By the end of the day’s mending adventures, I had repaired four pairs of jeans in some way, shape, or form – including adding a patch to another pair of jeans, just because.
As I said above, I’m hardly a skilled seamstress – some (many!) repairs are still way outside my proficiency level. But for today, I’ll be content with some patches and some needles and thread. And I’ll keep learning more advanced techniques – they’ll certainly come in handy!
:)