tailoring

[kaysixteen]

So I gots me a wee problem.   Sadly, for about a dozen years or so I have had edema in my lower legs, which you could easily spot if you saw me wearing shorts.   Put simply, my legs are permanently swollen.   Over the years I have had numerous physicians look at it (when I was with them for other reasons), including an actual surgeon in February, and all have said there is essentially nothing I can do about it.  It is annoying, but otherwise harmless.   But it also means that I cannot just buy a pair of pants off a store rack and wear them unaltered-- they will not fit.   Wearing a pair of long paints would show you the triangular swath of additional  cloth that is cut and sewed on into the lower leg part, in order to make em wide enough to wear.   I am not a tall dude, so what we do is buy a pair that is much too long for my needs, and use the excess cloth for the work.  'We' of course traditionally referred to my mom, who had a tailor she long used, to whom she took the pants for the alterations.   Problem is that I neglected to have her write the guy's name and address down, before she passed away, and my aunt does not know.   Aunt thinks she knows the town the guy was in, but this service has not been done for me since 2017, and, in any case, that  town is 5 miles north of her, whereas I am 35 miles south.   Over the years, I have accumulated a now rather large collection of (mostly cheaply bought) pants that I can have altered (I also bought, at a good job lot type outlet, several other pairs just to use as source cloth), and am ready to have the work done, which is really good because several of the pairs I am wearing now are ready for the rag heap.  So here's the problem-- I live in a city of 90k, actually an old industrial town that specialized of all things in the textile industry.   But I cannot find a tailor to do this.   One woman told me her business only services female clients, and two others, both clearly 60+, looked at me and my pants, thought on it, and said that they had never done anything like this before and did not trust themselves to try it (I do applaud their honesty)-- one even said that there are fewer and fewer people in this trade, every year.   There may be a few more people in it in this town-- one guy whom I spoke to on the phone, since the sign  on his shop said 'by appointment only', told me  to call back 'Thursday' last week, in order to make an appt, and since has not returned two calls and texts.   I have a list of other tailors in nearby towns and will get cracking on it this week on a day off.   Ah well.  Such is America in the mass-produced standardized era.

[AmLitHist]

If there is a Joann's or other fabric store near you, ask the fabric dept. manager or store manager if they know of any seamstresses/tailors. 

When I stayed at home with our girls when they were young, I let the stores near me know that I did made-to-order work and alterations, and they passed some nice business along to me. (I didn't want to advertise or do this as a business, because I wanted to be able to have more time for the kids.)  I then also got some work from word of mouth--we were near an Air Force base--and did several sets of little girls' dresses and such for a variety of clients.

[Hegemony]

I am having a similar problem with finding a handyman who do various things in my house involving drills, plumbing, and tiling.

I fear the answer in both cases the same: we will save ourselves a lot of grief and frustration by learning to do the job ourselves.

[Ruralguy]

Its very difficult find "handy men " like that, because the good ones learn to specialize and get onto construction jobs. Plumbing is a bit different because everyone gets some sort of plumbing problem, so there usually is someone who can come in on a days notice and same with HVAC, but for tiling or flooring, roofing, etc., unless you want to redo the entire thing, its really hard to find anyone. I'd love to be able to find one handy team who could just sweep in and replace every bad floor board or loose tile, or broken door knob, light switch that doesn't do anything, etc. I could probably learn to do it passingly well, but not great..at least not the first time, and considering how long it took to get here, there probably won't be a second time!

[ergative]

I've just discovered that the local community college offers eight-week long evening courses entitled things like 'DIY at home: Level 1' and 'DIY at home: advanced level 2'. They're booked up for the upcoming session, but I'm absolutely going to complete those.

[kaysixteen]

As the noted American philosopher Dirty Harry Callahan said 'a man's gotta know his limitations'.   My extreme mechanical disinclination makes sewing more or less a nonstarter.  I will have to hunt up a tailor.

[mythbuster]

Call the suit department at your local Macy's or other department store. They will know who are the local tailors who work with menswear.

[ergative]

As the noted American philosopher Dirty Harry Callahan said 'a man's gotta know his limitations'.   My extreme mechanical disinclination makes sewing more or less a nonstarter.  I will have to hunt up a tailor.

It is wise to know thyself. Thomas Benjamin Wild, my favourite modern philosopher, has put this sentiment into song, which I've considered adopting as my own life philosophy.

[bacardiandlime]

The other option is ask a dry cleaner. They often have alterations services, or someone they recommend.

[Langue_doc]

The other option is ask a dry cleaner. They often have alterations services, or someone they recommend.

Here in the city, the drycleaners would be the first place to go for tailoring needs.

[kaysixteen]

I tried the local big drycleaner chain.   Woman said she could not do it.   Another tailor was also a drycleaner, same answer.   I will just have to keep on trying, but I confess I think that such serious tailoring is perhaps an obsolete skill.   Here in Mass., the law just changed today, forbidding the throwing out of textiles in the trash.   Boston Globe helpfully recommends you take your old clothes to donate to a thrift store.   I do that, of course, but what about when the clothes are sufficiently worn out to be useless to anyone?  No answers yet on that front, but it does suggest that clothes are just another standardized product and people perhaps do not even wear them long enough to not be donatable.  Certainly not kept long enough to require tailor repairs?

[AJ_Katz]

If there is a Joann's or other fabric store near you, ask the fabric dept. manager or store manager if they know of any seamstresses/tailors. 

That's what I thought too.  These stores sometimes have a bulletin board where people pin their job seeking interests.  You might also consider posting a sign on the same bulletin board to have interested individuals call you. 

Might you also consider searching for someone online that can do this?  I would assume you could send them a pair that is already altered the way you like and they could alter the others to match.  Not sure if that would be an option. 

Best of luck kay16!

[bacardiandlime]

Boston Globe helpfully recommends you take your old clothes to donate to a thrift store.   I do that, of course, but what about when the clothes are sufficiently worn out to be useless to anyone? 

Donated clothes that are not wearable are shredded and sold as rags. Businesses like printers and mechanics then buy rags by the pound for cleaning etc.