Sunday, September 19, 2010

Call me Mrs. CrankyPants

Probably I shouldn't blog when I'm peeved, but Mr. de Hilo is officially fired from "are these pant hems even?" duty. Yesterday I asked him for a visual check of what I hoped was the final pinning:. I even stood on a little stool as he crouched down, so my ankles would be at his eye level as I turned around and around.

"Are these even? Are both legs the same length? Are the hems straight on the side?" etc.etc.
"Yes," he said.

So I pressed, trimmed the excess to 2", folded up a double hem, and pressed and pinned again, and set them aside to be stitched. I didn't get to them last night, though, and this morning I decided to check them one more time, using the camera and timer.

Aaaagck! The left leg was noticeably longer than the right in the back and to a slightly lesser degree in the front, and clearly not hanging level in the side view. The right leg was not quite level front-to-back, either.

Seriously? How could he not see that?

That's not why I'm cranky though. Making sure the hems are right is my job, not his. So I took the pants off and on a couple times, sat down and walked around in them, getting them to settle, and took two more sets of photos, just in case I'd managed to capture one weird moment of bad posture. Nope: consistent not-even, not-level results.

So then I repinned and re-photo'd. Twice more. Finally I felt confident they must be close enough. So I took one more round of front/back/side photos. And then, ta-daaaaah: my computer decided the camera does not exist. I've rebooted and reconnected twice, turned the camera on and off about six times, tried the cable in all 4 of the USB slots on my notebook, and nada.

And that's why I'm cranky. I think I've finally got the hems as close to right as they are likely to get, but the image in that little viewscreen on the back of the camera is just too small to be sure. That's why I've been checking full-size pics on the computer.

So, I'm giving up. I'm going to HEM THE *#$^%@! PANTS as they are and be done with it. When I can stand to look at them again. Which might not be 'til tomorrow.

And, believe it or not, in between all this pants stuff I've managed to sew up my first-ever knit top (yay!) and have cut fabric for another that I hope to get to this afternoon. I've been looking forward to showing them off.

I'll try hooking up the camera to hubbie's computer, but if the problem is the USB cable I'm out of luck until we get a replacement. I already know we don't have any other USB cable in the house that fits the camera, 'cause I looked last time we lost this one. And no, I don't have a smart phone to take pics with.

3 comments:

  1. Oh noooo! So frustrating. That happened to me and I can't remember what I did to fix it..I think I took the memory card out of the camera and poked it into a memory-card shaped slot and that worked. Except that it didn't fully stick in the slot so I had to keep my finger on it so it didn't pop out, and then worked the keyboard with just one hand. But if you have a memory card shaped slot that might do the trick!
    Sorry to hear of your camera and pants-hemming woes, I hope you get it sorted out!

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  2. Thanks for the sympathy! Unfortunately, neither computer in the house has a camera memory-card slot. I suspect the cable, and will know for sure when I replace it. Worst case, I can take the card to one of those kiosks and burn the photos to a disk.

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  3. Oh yeah, I'd be cranky, too! I'm interested to see the final product - they were on my list to sew this summer, but never got around to it. Even though we're experiencing super summer temps this weekend, I feel like real fall has to be around the corner, so I think they're bumped from the list for the time being.

    Btw, let me know how you like Cardio Strength when you get it. We had our first class of the new cardio strength routine last night and it kicked my booty! :)

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