In which I make my pants longer because I didn't buy talls

(and yes, my spellcheck still isn't working. Sorry.)

This last year I've developed an interest in Pinterest. For those who don't know, Pinterest is a website where you can publicly bookmark things you find interesting. These "pins" are organized into boards for easy retrieval, and they are visible to those who "follow" you, as well as others who may be searching for similar items. So it's kind of social, like Facebook, except you can't control who can see things, and it's all visual.
Yeah, I know, when I first heard of it I didn't think I'd be interested either.
You are automatically given the option of following people who are already your friends on facebook, then you can find other people to follow who may have similar interests to you. I've found that of those people I follow whom I actually know, most of them pin craft projects, recipes, home design, and tips on cleaning or child rearing.
I these were okay, but I found it a little boring until I realized I could also enjoy following a bunch of art boards, photography boards, "geek" (since when did this become so cool?), and a few other random interests from people whom I don't know in real life, but who have similar tastes to mine.
Yes, it's a great time waster, but I also find that I actually use the recipes I pin, I feel motivated to make more art, and I even feel popular sometimes when sixty people repin something I posted. I haven't figured out the method behind it, but I think the website randomly picks pins to show on its main pages, so everyone on the site will see it briefly.
Aannyway, this was leading up to clothes. I have a clothing board too. I mostly started it because I realized I disliked most of the clothes other people were pinning, at least other people I knew. I don't mean they were ugly clothes, they were cute, but just so not me. More...preppy Utah housewife, which bill I have never quite fit. As a result, I felt a need to explore that category, mostly to figure out what I did really like, as clothing isn't something I've spent a ton of time contemplating in the past. As I've looked through my clothing board, I've noticed that of all the varieties of clothes I admire or would like to own, the clothes I DO actually have, don't resemble those images at all!
Mostly, this is because I'm a cheapskate, and I care more about saving money than avoiding the fashion faux pas of buying all my clothes at Wal-mart. When I was single, I admit I ocassionally did splurge, buying some jeans at the "Tall Girl" store in Seattle, or ordering an occasional item from a catalog. But with a family to think of, I just can't justify that kind of luxury. Also, sometimes (but not always) the clothes I like are a little bit eccentric, which works in a big city, but I'm aware it may attract the wrong kind of attention in a very small conservative town in South Dakota. Especially now that I'm (gulp) over thirty. For instance, something like this probably wouldn't go over well here, but I think it's cute:

Well, on vacation this summer, we had lunch in a few malls. And I saw lots of pretty clothes that I liked. And one store had a sale, and while I didn't buy anything there, the mall in the next town had the same store, which was also having a sale. And Joseph encouraged me to get something, so why not?
So I bought three pairs of nice jeans, at least nicer than the Walmart ones I usually get. And I wear jeans all the time, unlike some of the other random outfits I could have purchased, so I felt good about it.
The problem is, only one pair was on sale, and my size. The other two I loved ,but they were just a tad too small. As in waist size and length too small.Yeah, this was one of those stores where after a certain size, they inexplicably changed the pocket pattern, because apparently bigger people wouldn't want the same design?
But because Joseph was waiting with the kids and I felt rushed, I decided to get them anyway, figuring it would be motivation for me to get in shape. But. But they were regular size, not talls, which I usually buy. And they looked okay while I was standing in the mirror of the dressing room, but I didn't realize until weeks later that I looked silly walking in these pants that didn't quite touch the tops of my shoes when I walked. (Oh the mortification in when I walked toward the full-length mirror in the Wal-mart bathroom! I was looking like one of those people.)
After that realization, my cute jeans were sadly abandoned, until just recently. I was really sad about it too, mostly because of the waste of money. Then I realized, I actually could make my pants even more awesome, as well as longer! Well, some people might think I ruined them...but I don't know about that.

This first pair of the two jeans had several interesting features that convinced me to buy them. First was the unique pattern to the fading on the front. The way it looked as if it had been scrunched during the fading process was reminiscent of tie-dye designs. I don't wear tie-dye much these days, but this felt like a nice classy tribute to my younger years ;)

don't you hate it when people take pictures of themselves in their bathroom mirror and post them? Me too.

The second thing I loved was the pockets, oh the pockets. I don't know what the big style is where you live, and am often surprised to see things that are popular other places (like what was up with all the women wearing giant flowers on their jackets when they spoke at General Conference? Seriously, I'd never seen that before.) Anyway, out here in the midwest, it's very popular for ones back pockets to sport lots of bling, as in shiny metal and rhinestones. I don't hate it, but it's definitely NOT for me. In the context of where we live, it makes me think of rodeo queens and cowgirls.

No.

I do, however, like the idea of decorated pockets to distinguish one pair of jeans from another (though I could see some might argue this draws too much attention to a womans posterior...I do hate those sweatpants with words across the bum. So distasteful. But these don't seem the same to me at all, so to each their own.)

So, I don't like the bling pockets, but I was delighted with these, which involved thick contrast white and cream stitching in various stitch patterns, combined with the frayed edges of jean material. Again, a slight lean toward a hippy-like style with a refined twist to it. Or not. I just liked it. They also have an off-center flap pocket (you can't tell that in this picture, but trust me.)

As you may have guessed by the title of this post, what I needed to fix on these pants was the length. After the first few times of wearing them, the waist fits fine, but the lenth wasn't something that would fix itself over time. So I decided to take out the bottom hem to add some legth, and hopefully it wouldn't ruin them too much! I was hoping for a little more, but taking out the hem did give me a good inch or so. I put a stitch around so that it wouldn't fray too much, but a little fraying was okay.

The darker color where the fabric was folded over, and the resulting stripes where the original hem was, actually works well with the fading across the top of the jeans, making it look like they were deliberately designed that way!



Now I can love my pants again. Yay!

So now for the other pair of jeans. These too had thick stitching in fun patterns, with lots of detailing around the pockets. These have three colors of thread: cream, light blue, and a light brown...though it's hard to see the different shades in the photo.

The stitch patterns and colors remind me of those light and airy peasant blouses with poofy three-quarters sleeves. I love those kind of shirts. In high school I had this favorite pair of pants that used to be my mom's, which had white stitching down the sides and fading on the front. Both pairs of pants definitely remind me of those favorites too.





the middle row on this coin pocket is the light blue, though you can't tell.

These back pockets aren't quite as fancy as the first with the different textures and shapes, but they are still pretty fun, with creme and white all over.

As with the first, these jeans are also a mite too short. But I am hesitating on giving them the same treatment as the first, for various reasons. For one, these don't have all the linear fading as the first ones do, so I'm not sure the lines that will result from removing the stitches will really go with the rest of the pants.These are also straight legged instead of bootcut, so the frayed edge might look weird. Or it might not, I don't know.
Also, I love the thick stitch around the bottom, and I don't want to ruin it; that was the one thing I was sad about when I changed the first ones as well.

So what do you think? Go for it, and possibly enjoy another cute pair of pants, (or be sad that I ruined them). Or just give them away to someone and just be sad for the wasted money. Not that I know anyone whom these would fit...

UPDATE: This is silly. I got these second jeans out and was considering how to take care of them. They actually still had the tags on, because when I had discovered how silly the other pair looked, I never went out of the house with these. So I had this suddent thought to get out the pair I had unhemmed, and to compare the two lengths...and it looked like these were longer, even though they're the same size and the same brand. So I tried on the second pair, and it was true! These are over an inch longer on me, and they look fine without modification. Yay! (And I bought these in July, so it's even funnier that I didn't know this before then.)