Saturday Stresses

I'm a wee bit cranky today.

Last night my knees were killing me and today it is my back. I'm falling apart.

And after breakfast I had the joy of altering a pair of pants for Papa R. He hates trying on clothes. Let's not get started on how much he likes standing there while someone pins. That lucky person was me. He kept looking downwards while I tried to pin. ~sigh~

"Stand straight!" I would plead.

But Papa R's patience for such chores, well, are non-existent.

Leaning over again he observes, "they look fine."

"Is that how you wear your pants?" Mama R questions Papa R about the placement of his waistband. She knows far to well that he ruins many pant hems because he lets the waistband rest under the big belly that he carries around. It will alter the length of the finished hem.  

"They're fine," he replies.

My patience starts to wear thin.  "Yeah, it's fine," I observe in defeat. I've been through far too many pant hemming sessions to try to convince him to wear his pants naturally.

Papa R is relieved and quickly surrenders the pants. He returns to his easy chair and television as I head to the laundry room.

Mending and altering are not my favourite activities but for the folks I'll make an exception. The things you do for love.

I press the pants to make a crease where I have pinned up the hem. Then I baste a long stitch along the pressed crease.  I know it might seem like an unnecessary step but it's something that I like to do.

Using the basting as a guideline, I cut a seam allowance for the pants hem.

I continue working as my coffee sits in the distance chilling away. Although I long for one more gulp of my morning coffee, I continue working. Complete foolishness as I'm not a morning person. This has me wondering if those morning folks upstairs are really my Mama and Papa. My thoughts shift to previous Project Runway episodes.

"Hey! I've never seen any of the contestants drinking coffee while they work in the workroom," horrified at the thought. With a slight feeling of guilt, I reach for my coffee and try to ease my mind of the horror. It's cold.  

I forget about my coffee as another pair of pants enter my sewing space. Mama R arrives with a pair of pants of her own. More pinning, ironing and basting before I can move onto the sewing machines to hem the two pairs of pants.

I gather some spools of thread for the serger since the red thread from the last project won't cut it.

Threading a serger without a sufficient amount of caffeine in my system proves to be disastrous. I give up as the first spool of thread fails to work its way through the serger. What was I thinking? Sewing in the morning without fully enjoying a cup of coffee. Silly me! I head upstairs to the kitchen.

I think I'm going to need a cookie with that coffee.