not as rare as hen's teeth, but close enough

Well, well. Seems like the iMac gobbled up my text.

Anyway, in the midst of mini-hunger and anticipation of free dinner at workplace, I feel compelled to share a tale of shopping. One that is still yet to complete.

For the past few years, September (the month of college-starts-next-month behaviour) has meant one thing to my wallet: jeans-buying. Because, of course, jeans is a wardrobe staple... and how every brand's doing it so tight thighs look like vacuum-packed chicken... and why that cut you got at the bottom of the pile is so great, if only the colour was right... and how, after defecting to the men's section, I had to admit [temporary] defeat that those cool men's jeans comes in its smallest size which is a full 4 inches larger than my girth. So. There goes the drama of finding one.

On the issue of college-starts-next-month behaviour. I have no college for now, alas, and hopefully not for the long run (not if I have to pay for it anyway.) The jeans-buying was borne out of reasons such as (1) "jeans is so easy to wear for college" and (2) "the weather will get cold", which I can comfortably refute by (1) only if your contemporary definition of 'easy' involves cutting off blood circulation to the feet and (2) it is warmer to wear two layers of skirts and wool tights and boots than one flimsy layer of cotton twill. And, from historical records, I tend to wear dresses and skirts to college anyway.

That aside, I have three pairs of jeans (so biblically I can give two pairs away to a homeless person, except that I need to find one who can get into them.) And these three pairs of jeans, they are very personal to me. There's Pinstitched, a navy/indigo semi bootcut pair that dates back to me and my sister's days of shopping at Review, one that was purchased one size larger because I had to have them peeled off me. There's Final Year, a bog-standard blue indigo boyfriend slim fit Mr 70-cm-waist #2* could fit into, purchased under the pretext "it will be easier to sit and sew wearing this pair". There's First Year, a grey/black slim/straight fit pair that I bought because of the buttons and hemming details, and the one that's giving me headache, because... it's got a worn-out hole at the crotch.

Because of how pants/trousers/bifurcated-leg garments are cut, crutches tend to lay on the off-grain and are reinforced merely by the way the garments are assembled i.e. by the machine stitches alone. Hence the profusion of flat-felled seams. Crutches are a point of stress in bifurcated garments, where legs swing and fabric twists and stretch to accomodate for the movement. The fact that cructhes lay off-grain also makes it impossible to darn or patch. Many moons ago I tried to fix such a problem to a pair belonging to Mag (who split hers whilst she was rollerblading. For the record, I didn't split mine due to some high-impact activity.) It only lasted for three further weeks, at which point we decided that it would be better to save threads and buy a new pair instead.

So, back to jeans-hunting. I'm still looking for a dark grey/black pair, with tapered legs that doesn't cut off blood circulation to my feet, yet one fitted I can tuck into boots. I went back to the store where I got First Year in the hope of scoring a replacement, but to no avail.

So maybe, once I have the heart to dissect it, First Year will be taken apart seam-by-seam to be pattern-traced and remade into a new garment...

*I affectionately/respectfully refer to persons of past relationship as 'Mr', and there had been two such persons with impossibly slim waists. Hence the numbering.