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Monthly Archives: September 2012

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

Hey, I found this!  I’m fond of this story, so here’s a reposting (from a previous blog)!  Also, the dog in question is Choco.  Yaris wasn’t around yet.

We recently remodeled the front yard so that half of it is walled off from the street. My mother then proceeded to plant flowers and such along the inside of the wall, facing the house, as one of her hobbies is gardening. Since the front yard is walled, I felt ok about letting the dog run out there sometimes. It’s not like she can do much damage in our own yard. That apparently is untrue. You see, my dog is secretly a horse.

The first time I let her out in the front yard, she was quite happy, as she didn’t used to get to play in the front of the house that often. So she went exploring, as dogs do, and went over to sniff at the flowers my mother had planted. I wasn’t paying that much attention to her, but out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw her try to take a bite out of one of the blossoms.

Wait…what? By the time I had fully focused on her, she had already wandered off and was exploring other parts of the yard. I figured I was just seeing things as it didn’t look like any of the flowers were missing. At any rate, I shooed her inside and that was the end of it.

But this continued to happen when I would let my dog into the front yard. It would always seem like she was taking bites out of the flowers out of the corner of my eye and I was never quite fast enough to actually catch her in the act. The flowers never seemed to diminish in number, so I always thought I was just imagining things.

Finally, I decided I would just watch her the entire time she was out in the front yard. I mean, seriously, am I always imagining my dog eating flowers in the front yard? How ridiculous is that? She’s not a horse. Why would she be interested in flowers? So, I let the dog out into the front yard again. She again went exploring to see what might have changed from the last time she was out there. She paused by the flowers, this time by the tree in the middle of the yard, and then she proceeded to eat one of the blossoms and ran off.

Wait…what? She really ate one of the flowers! Moderately horrified at what my dog horse had done, I shooed her back inside the house and made sure my mother hadn’t seen what had happened. If she would ask, I would just blame the rabbits. I would hide the identity crisis my dog was having to try and spare her the shame and ridicule.

Since that incident, my dog hasn’t really been too interested in the flowers in the front yard when she’s out there. She seems much more interested in trying to open the gate to run out toward the street and play. I thought maybe she’s realized she is a dog after all. Until I caught her taking furtive bites out of the leafy tops of the vegetables my mother grows in the backyard. Sugh.

I modify! Polo shirt edition

So, as you know, I recently accepted a position with THEM.  THEM is a very different place than Company.  For one thing, they sent me a gift basket before I even started.  That was terribly nice of them.  They also give all their new hires a whole set of THEM-wear because…I suppose they want ALL YOUR ALLEGIANCE.

But anyway, before I started, I was asked my clothing size and whatnot so they wouldn’t know what size shirts to order for me.  To be safe, I told them XL since they didn’t give me any measurements that went along with these sizes and I figured I could always alter down.  It’s kind of hard to alter up.  You can…it’s just harder.  Well anyway, when I received my THEM-wear (three polos, two button-downs, and a jacket), they fitted me about as well as a two-person tent would.  That is to say…they were quite large on me.  Quite.

Not my favorite color, so obviously it’s the one to experiment on. Note the tent-like qualities.

Now, the jacket wasn’t a huge deal.  I actually really like to wear tent-like jackets.  Also, the particular jacket included in my THEM-wear is really hard to alter.  The polos and button-downs were another matter though.

For one thing, wearing a tent doesn’t look very professional and generally, I try and look like I belong in a professional environment in front of customers.  It’s remarkably difficult for a moose to blend into a professional environment.  You wouldn’t think so, but it is.  I would argue I could get away with it wearing a tentish jacket as it’s supposed to go over all my other clothing and stuff, but not with a shirt that would be the primary layer.

Another problem with wearing a tent is that in my line of work, sometimes I have to bend and contort into strange positions to get under machines and such.  If you’re wearing something that’s either too big or too small…well, it is a Bad Thing that can quickly escalate into a BAD THING.  It’s best for clothes to be fitted whilst still allowing room for movement.  That…doesn’t really describe a tent.  So, I had to alter the shirts.

Altering down the polos on each side wasn’t a big deal.  I ended up just taking in one side first until it fit how I wanted and then mirroring the new edge to the other side.  If you have a ginormous polo that you want to completely alter, then I would refer you to this series of photos.

The thing with polos is that they often have that split hem.  This was the case with my THEM-wear polos.  I didn’t want to get rid of the split hem because I thought it looked funny without it.  I was hoping I could get away with keeping the original split hem, which meant having a shirt that was extra wide at the bottom.  Yeah…that didn’t work out so well.  So, I had to recreate the split hem.  It’s really not a difficult process.  I’m just lazy.

Split hem

So here’s how I did it.  Sorry, it seems like I wasn’t interested in documenting the process when I was doing it.  I only have a very few photos.  I scribbled on one to try and help illustrate what I was doing.

  1. Alter the sides of your polo to your satisfaction.  If you’re not ripping apart the seams and completely redoing everything, I would recommend sewing the new sides down first before cutting or ripping seams or anything.  That way if you mess up, you can just take it apart and start over.
  2. Decide how long you want the split to be on your split seams and them make sure to sew at least 0.25″ past that point. (The greenish circle.)
  3. Rip apart the seams for the original split seam.  It’ll take some effort and care.  There are a lot of reinforcement stitches.
  4. Trim the raw edge of the split seam so that you have at least 1″ to the new sewn edge.
  5. Fold a small triangle from the raw edge.
  6. Holding the previous fold down, fold the raw edge to meet where the sewn edge of the shirt would be.
  7. Fold the whole thing one on itself so that the edge is approximately 0.25″ from where the sewn edge of the shirt would be.
  8. Sew the free edge down.  I recommend using your zipper foot.
  9. Repeat steps 1-8 for the other half of the split hem.
  10. Sew in the reinforcement stitches like you had earlier if you so desire.
  11. Repeat steps 1-10 for the other side.

Hmm…looking back, I see that this is a horrible tutorial.  But I do have one more polo I have to alter.  I guess I’ll take some pictures while I’m altering that one and update this post.  But you have some idea of how to make a split hem.  Right?  Riiiiight???