They exist to break your heart. Yesterday I wore my favorite pair to S&Ls so as not to attend one of their famed neighborhood breakfasts in ragged BDUs. And the worn fabric just spontaneously tore, just from a little tug.
Then this morning while patching them I happened to look at the britches I was wearing and thought, “You’re next, aren’t you?” Thin like paper, that right thigh is.
Sigh. While I’m at it…
Times like this I do wish I’d learned how to run a sewing machine. This is time-consuming, but it works. Iron on the patch during the day while you’ve got lots of juice, then stitch it on in the evening when you’ve got lots of time. Me so domestic, which is fine, but it does seem like I’ve got more patches than britches at the moment.
I discovered a marvelous way to prolong the life of jeans and even shirts for my sons. You already know just which points on the garment will wear out first, and so it makes all kinds of sense to apply the iron on patches to the NEW garment in those places. Sew them around the edges, of course. Then wear them. If the patch starts getting thin and coming off, remove it and put on a new patch right away. Then the underlying fabric will still be strong enough to hold it. Make the patches as large as you can over the special wear points like knees and elbows.
Seems to me we got at least twice as much wear out of things doing it this way. 🙂
That’s probably a good idea.
Joel, what size pants/jeans do you wear? Maybe some of us could help you out.
I appreciate the thought, billf, but I don’t actually wear jeans very much. Not in summer, anyway, and I’ve got a nice stash of baggy jeans for winter that work well with longhandles. It’s just that one pair of Levis that I do love so, and bring out only for social occasions.
Now, if somebody had some BDUs he wanted to get rid of, I’m a medium/regular. 🙂
Wow, camo iron-ons . . . who knew?!?
You ain’t seen redneck till you’ve shopped in a Walmart in a poor rural county. 🙂