Metasthenic Monday

metasthenic ~ having strong haunches or hindquarters

The wheel turns and the seasons change. It’s still not all that warm, and the wind is particularly bitter, but the sun has been out more often than not lately and the oppressive gloom of winter is slowly lifting.

My big accomplishment for the weekend was getting a new zipper sewn into my black winter jacket. You know, just in time for the weather to warm up enough so I won’t get a chance to wear it.

This jacket was a thrift store find and I only got to wear it a few times before the metal zipper in it kept sticking and/or separating when it wasn’t supposed to. I actually paid more for the replacement zipper than I did for the jacket itself, but I really like the jacket so I figured it was worth it.

That feeling lasted until I actually sat down to put the new zipper in. Ripping out the old zipper was no problem, but my sewing machine did not like the thread I was using (it kept breaking) nor sewing through the leather. It pretended to like it, the new zipper just slid into place and I had no problem sewing initially, but several sections of the stitching didn’t catch so there were big gaps.

I adjusted the tension and the thread started breaking. I changed to a different kind of thread and it broke too. Then the needle started hesitating – sometimes it would stick in the material and pull the whole thing upwards. The cats went into hiding.

I finally broke down and went out and bought some upholstery thread (maybe it was a little overkill but I wanted a good, strong thread) and some leather needles. It should have been easy-peasy. It was not. The thread still broke. I adjusted the tension again. The heavy duty sewing machine needle bent. I replaced it. The hubby suggested I just take the jacket to the tailor in the mall – he’s lucky to have escaped with his life.

I took a break to get my blood pressure back to normal and then gave it one more shot. One long seam without stopping like it should have done in the first place and the first half of the zipper was in place. The second side only took a couple of tries, which was kind of surprising because it was the harder of the two.

I have another thrift store jacket in the closet, a nice medium blue ski jacket, that also needs a zipper replaced. Actually, the zipper itself is fine, it’s just the little piece at the bottom that keeps the whole thing from separating that needs replacing. I may look into alternative fixes before resorting to replacing the whole zipper.

It might be better for my blood pressure.