I absolutely adore this pair of jean bell-bottoms, I simply refuse to let them die. Over the years I’ve probably added a couple of pounds of patches, patches over patches over patches.

It started simply because the denim was wearing thin and I just really dug them. I mean how often do you find bell-bottoms and not have to make them yourselves nowadays? Not only that, finding something this cool in my size just about never freaking happens. One patch leads to another, and another… Now how can I possibly stop? Not only that, I’ve taken them in twice, which normally I refuse to do in jeans. They are to the point now that if I lose any more weight I either have to stop wearing them or actually take apart all the seams to re-sew them. :/

I have pants that took a month to decorate, more than one pair actually. Yet these are the pair that I get the most compliments on. I use to find that completely bewildering, it’s not like regular patches take that much skill. Then R said that I might not get as many compliments on them because they are so well done people assume I bought them like that. I guess I can’t complain anymore!

Every time I patch these pants I usually get pulled into doing at least a dozen patches, because of course, they age in more than one spot. This time it was probably in the realm of dozens…and I noticed something I’d never really paid attention to before. When I put a patch on these babies, I usually don’t wait for the hole to be large, I like to patch it before they fray so much that they are a pain to fix up. Now I’ve obviously looked at the inside of my pants as I’ve gone along but I never really stopped to think about the inside. This time I realized how thin and threadbare it’s gotten. When I started patching these the denim wasn’t what I’d call torn yet, just frayed and clearly going to be a hole. Look at how crazy thin and worn the inside is now! What did I do? I patched the inside. LOL Yes. I put a couple of huge boring patches over the really bad spots. Why when I'm patching the inside anyway? Anything I can do to make these pants live for years to come I’m willing to do. THESE are the pants I think of when I think of “girl with patchy pants”.

And yes, I’ve even darned the bell section! I don’t want to obscure the bells or make them not stand out.