Monday, December 21, 2015

Not a holiday post


I am OVER the holiday hoopla. I spent all of my money & the last of my vacation time for this year to take my father to NC and I am done. The whole mess was traumatic and I'm not saying anything else about it other than NEVER AGAIN.

SO, ON TO SOMETHING ELSE.....

I have a zillion jackets & coats, so I needed another one like a hole in the head. But back in September, one of the catalogs that I get had this trench style fleece coat that I just fell in love with. I wanted it in black, but of course THAT wasn't available in my size, so I settled for gray. It was on sale, plus I had an additional discount code AND a frequent shopper reward from the company as well as a free shipping code, so I paid about $28 for a $80 coat.

Then, once it came, I decided that I didn't like the buttons on it. No biggie, a quick trip to the craft store should solve that. Right? Riiiiiiight.

A: count the number of buttons you're going to need AND measure them before you go to the craft store. I did neither. More on that in a minute.

B: when the hell did buttons get so ridiculously expensive?!? The ones I really liked started at $4-6 PER BUTTON. Since I thought I was replacing 7 of them, it seemed wrong to spend as much on buttons as I did on the he coat itself. Even with coupons, I was going to be paying a lot. So I bought 1 large button in a style that appealed to me & took it home to see how it would look.

Looked great, but it was too big. Ok, let's suit down and search the store's website. Maybe something I like & can afford will jump out at me. I found a set of 4 pretty purple & black swirled jewel tone buttons. The site said they were in stock at the store, but somehow I'd overlooked them. No problem. I took a quick look at the coat & came up with a total of 7 buttons.

I went back the next day and found them. Too small, & wrong style. I needed flat buttons & these had the peg back. So I looked for smaller versions of the big one I bought the day before. Eureka! Sold in sets of 2, a slightly different shape, but I liked them enough to go for it. Also, less expensive than the first couple of designs I looked at.


After all that, you'd think I would have gone home & started the great button replacement project. Those who know me, know what came next. The button bag got hung on the hanger with the coat and sat untouched for a couple of weeks...

...Until the day I looked at the forecast and saw the weather was finally going to get cold enough to need a coat rather than the fleece jackets I was wandering around in. (We've had an oddly warm winter) So I made myself sit down, snipped the first button off the jacket, and stitched the new one in place. Yay! Two more followed suit, easy peasy. That's when I discovered that I had miscounted and the body of the coat only had 3 buttons. No problem, I'll replace the 2 on the belt loops & have 3 left of the 8 I bought.

You guessed it. The belt loop buttons were SMALLER than the body ones. Arrrgh! Back to the stupid store. The brand I bought did make a smaller button in the same style/color, but in a different shape. I grabbed a pack of two, paid for them (after sharing my tale of woe & frustration with the amused cashier- I spend so much time there that this girl knows me on sight) and went home to finish this damned project.




Stitched the two new buttons on and started to congratulate myself when something hit me. I'd hung the coat up to take a picture, but only one belt loop button appeared to be replaced. WTF?!? I yanked the coat down & started examining it, because I *KNOW* I replaced two buttons. I was kind of right. That's when I realized that there was a THIRD belt loop button on the BACK of the coat, and that was the one I'd stitched on.



I am not embarrassed to admit I threw a shrieking tantrum. I should be, but I'm not. It was my own fault for not paying attention, counting correctly, etc. So I drove back to the craft store ONE MORE TIME for the final button. My friendly cashier started laughing when I stomped through the door with a face like thunder. "Oh dear," she said. "How off was it this time?"

Now, a smart person would have brought all of the wrong/excess buttons back for an exchange. As I've already proven, this project had turned me into the village idiot. Not only had I shredded my receipts, I'd torn all the buttons off their cardboard backing when I thought they'd get used, so I was stuck with them.

I paid for the (hopefully) final pair of buttons and went home, determined to finish this thing once & for all. I replaced the LAST button, went over the coat with a fine tooth comb (and a lint roller because the little black cat finally came to see what her mama was losing her damn fool mind over and rolled on it) and realized I was really truly finished. Tears were shed, and the coat was hung up for a picture:

And then the weather warmed up again, so it was another month before I got to wear the damned thing!

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