You know when you hear a song on the radio and you go ‘oooh, that’s ma jam!’
Well, this is a story about ma shirt.
The Shirt hails from NYC, so it’s automatically more cynical cooler than all my other clothes. Soft, neutral, striped, and the perfect ‘loose enough to hide last night’s Ben & Jerry’s binge, but not so loose that you look like you’ve given up and stopped shaving your legs’ fit. The fact that I got it pre-pregnancy for $5 was icing on the cake – and the fact that it still flatters the post-baby bod is – well, even more icing on the cake.
Mmmmmmm, delicious shirt....
Let’s get one thing straight: I love The Shirt dearly. I love it so much, I bought it despite the fact that it was made with side pockets. Side pockets in shirts are kind of like pockets in baby clothes. What the heck do you need them for?? Allow me to answer for you: …youdon’tneedshirtswithsidepockets. So to recap, I became the proud owner of the so-close-to-perfect shirt… but the pockets, grrrrr those POCKETS! I couldn’t wear it in that state! I had to decide on a logical course of action, and quick. So:
- I cut the pockets out, of course. And then:
- Sewed the holes shut so there were no gaping holes in both sides of my favorite shirt. Duh.
- Had a happy ending! Bye for now, tune in next time for a new fun story that makes perfect sense.
HAHAHAHA oh wait, that makes way too much sense. Here’s what actually happened:
- I cut the pockets out, of course. And then:
- Remembered “ohhhh yeah, I don’t know how to sew!” and put it in a biiiig pile with all the other things I’ll sew and/or craft with once I know how to sew and/or craft type things. DUH.
Fast forward 2 years: the pile has grown, I still don’t know how to sew, and my husband is all “GET RID OF THE PILE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO SEW.” Yeesh.
After deciding that I couldn’t rid myself of such an almost-perfect item, I decided the easiest thing would just be to wear it anyway. “Those holes are pretty small,” I thought. “Nobody will notice them, because the rest of the shirt is so awesome!” Soooo obviously, as soon as I wore it to work, my friend called me out for pretty much wearing a rag on purpose.
I tried to explain the backstory; “Oh no, it’s the greatest shirt ever, I just hated the pockets, I mean why do shirts even have pockets? So I cut them out, except then I didn’t know how to sew…” and I thought it would make her brain click like “OHHHH, I would do exactly the same thing!” But that didn’t happen. Nope. Not even a little. In fact she kinda looked like this:
Warning: The awesomeness of this item of clothing does not make up for logical shortcomings.
And then backed away slowly, leaving me alone in my classroom – all alone, with nobody but me, myself, and I to figure out how to get those damn pocket holes closed up before anyone else noticed (anyone else who hadn’t attended the school-wide faculty meeting that morning, anyway). Luckily, me, myself, and I are pretty smart people.
Allow me to present to you The Shirt, new and improved, no holes and no sewing necessary!
"How did she do that???"
LOGIC FOR THE WIN.
Since I’m clearly a pro at this whole ‘logic’ thing, do you have any problems that need solving? Leave ’em in the comment section, I’m happy to help 🙂
Hang on, Baby! 
I’ve got an almost perfect shirt. Problem is, it’s meant for breastfeeding. It, too, has pockets. But I like the pockets, because I’m weird like that. It also has a vneck with a piece of cloth hanging in the middle to look like a cami but not actually be a cami so you can pull it aside to flash the neighbors occasionally.
Problem is? Both my son AND daughter know this.
Sure, sure – just cut it out and wear a real cami underneath you say. BUT I am so over the white cami under dark blue shirt layered look. i just want the same piece of cloth…but secretly secured to stop flashing the neighbors. Sure, we’re all about making new friends – but not if they have to introduce themselves as a registered sex offender first.
Also? I can’t sew.
Help?
Oh girl, that IS a conundrum! Luckily you have barked up the right tree today. From where I stand you have a couple options. One: staple like you’ve never stapled before! Just be careful – if the fabric doesn’t lay right when you staple, you’ll end up looking like you have three weird boobs (which, arguably, is worse than flashing two regular ones). Two – and I say this with my serious advice face on – try a Coobie bra. I got two from a store in New Hope a few weeks back, and while they *look* like camisoles, they’re just super comfy bras. Like, the most comfy bras ever. And they come in tons of colors too, so you may be able to track one down that matches a little better than just going the white cami route?
http://shopcoobie.com/
Love them. Good luck!
Not being a master of the needle and thread, how did you close up the holes? Safety pins? Paper clips? Double sided tape? All staples in my sewing kit. 🙂
Pun intended?? Lol! I used *actual* staples 🙂
I think the method is my own (I thought, secret) “I can’t sew” method of stapling clothes. It’s so fast! And that’s all that you can say good about it. Because it usually is crooked, and often scratchy and painful. But fast! Works real well with hems and gets things off the Pile and back to work.
I guess the staple doesn’t fall far from the tree! Or the apple doesn’t fall far from the staple… however that old saying goes. But for real, I laughed so hard when I read this! Maybe I saw you stapling some clothes when I was a young’un, and that’s what gave me the divine inspiration the other day…
Stapling hems was my method of choice when I needed to borrow a younger sister’s skirt without her knowing I had borrowed it. 2 minutes of staple removing and the skirt was once again it’s original length (which was too long for the shortest sister in the family). If I was really in a hurry, though, scotch tape worked, but not quite as well.