A couple of weeks ago I bought a great pair of shorts from a charity shop, then wore them for the first time and immediately realised why someone donated them in the first place.
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Fortunately #ExeterLibrary offers an extremely cool service where people with library cards can borrow a sewing machine to use in the library. It comes with a lamp, box of accessories including black and white thread and a seam ripper but not a needle threader so I'd recommend bringing your own) and instruction sheet for threading it. Threading an unfamiliar machine is often a bit of a logic puzzle but I actually found it harder to get the unfamiliar iron working, which you can also borrow for pressing. This is all free btw.
2/🧵
@afewbugs What is a "needle threader"? Yes, the instructions for threading a sewing machine are essential, but I've never come across a gadget to help?
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Isn't that strange?! I expect these pants were new old stock, with some unfashionable leg shape. Which were then purchased wholesale by another company that cut them into shorts and added the embroidery
It's a whole industry. I read an article about it sometime. Probably in the New Yorker. It sounds like their kind of thing
@NilaJones @jgrg I suppose it's good that the unfashionable jeans or whatever they were originally weren't just dumped in the Atacama desert or something then
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@afewbugs What is a "needle threader"? Yes, the instructions for threading a sewing machine are essential, but I've never come across a gadget to help?
@TimWardCam like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threaders-Plastic-Needles-Machines-Clothing/dp/B0BBZXDK6L/ Basically a diamond shaped bit of stiff wire you can put through the eye of the needle then have a much larger hole to put the thread through, then use it to pull the thread through the needle. They save so much faffing about
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Isn't that strange?! I expect these pants were new old stock, with some unfashionable leg shape. Which were then purchased wholesale by another company that cut them into shorts and added the embroidery
It's a whole industry. I read an article about it sometime. Probably in the New Yorker. It sounds like their kind of thing
@NilaJones @afewbugs Ah yes, that makes sense! I was wondering why what is clearly industrial embroidery wasn't done in the right order when making them.
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@afewbugs i get audibly upset in dressing rooms when i try on pants that 1. have teeny tiny pockets or 2. have fake pockets
@emily_rugburn @afewbugs I sewed some pockets in my daughter's shorts. For myself, I buy retro style dresses and skirts. They come with huge pockets 🥰
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A couple of weeks ago I bought a great pair of shorts from a charity shop, then wore them for the first time and immediately realised why someone donated them in the first place.
1/🧵
@afewbugs oooooooo straight to jail!!
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Also it's 2026, women want pockets enough to make them ourselves FFS. Clothing companies take note
@afewbugs this is the coolest gods damned thread! That's incredible, I need to see if the TPL has sewing machines for use anywhere
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Also it's 2026, women want pockets enough to make them ourselves FFS. Clothing companies take note
@afewbugs skirts with a pocket for your phone absolutely rules. I love the ones I have that can take a phone soooo much more....
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I decided it would be easier to sew the new pockets to the existing ones by hand, so this is my accountability thread to make sure I actually do that before it gets too cold to wear them. But yes, Exeter Library's sewing machine service: highly recommended. Creepy men: do not recommend.
@afewbugs Also, yes, an alarming number of men are creepy. It's hard to believe the scale of it until you start experiencing it.
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@emily_rugburn @afewbugs I sewed some pockets in my daughter's shorts. For myself, I buy retro style dresses and skirts. They come with huge pockets 🥰
@isisevrinen @emily_rugburn @afewbugs I love both these examples of retrofitted pockets! Brilliant! (but boo to creepy men)
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Also it's 2026, women want pockets enough to make them ourselves FFS. Clothing companies take note
Also somewhere in the replies a man asked me what a needle threader was and I explained and now I feel like tracking down the library guy, waving my phone in his face and going "Look at that! You see how easy it is to take a genuine interest in something sewing related and ask a question in a perfectly normal way about it! LOOK HOW EASY IT IS NOT TO BE A CREEP!"
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A couple of weeks ago I bought a great pair of shorts from a charity shop, then wore them for the first time and immediately realised why someone donated them in the first place.
1/🧵
When I added dark-out lining to my curtains 3 years ago in Oxfordshire, I borrowed a sewing machine from a local costume business. I was amazed they wanted no money.
I love my curtains.
I learned to sew by watching my grandma.
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@afewbugs Oh, weird. There would have been some pocket if they hadn't been embroidered through the pocket lining.
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The only part of the experience that wasn't great was when a man interrupted me in the middle of the first pocket and asked me to teach him how to use a sewing machine, which is the sort of thing that unfortunately happens all too frequently while Being A Woman In Public. I waved the threading instruction sheet at him, told him he was in a library and suggested he get a book, told him to look for YouTube videos and suggested he ask any older female relatives he might have because there was a good chance they might know. He responded by asking if I would come back next Saturday and he would pay me to teach him.
5/🧵
@afewbugs Love your flo mask! So pretty!
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@TimWardCam like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threaders-Plastic-Needles-Machines-Clothing/dp/B0BBZXDK6L/ Basically a diamond shaped bit of stiff wire you can put through the eye of the needle then have a much larger hole to put the thread through, then use it to pull the thread through the needle. They save so much faffing about
@afewbugs @TimWardCam
Thanks for the info.I have seen them before, but never understood them. Now, I do.
You rock!
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So I cut some slits in the existing useless pockets and made some new ones.
4/🧵
@afewbugs So cool!! Nice work
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So I cut some slits in the existing useless pockets and made some new ones.
4/🧵
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I decided it would be easier to sew the new pockets to the existing ones by hand, so this is my accountability thread to make sure I actually do that before it gets too cold to wear them. But yes, Exeter Library's sewing machine service: highly recommended. Creepy men: do not recommend.
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A couple of weeks ago I bought a great pair of shorts from a charity shop, then wore them for the first time and immediately realised why someone donated them in the first place.
1/🧵
@afewbugs Argh, the fake tiny pockets!
I have done similar pocket surgery on jeans, and while it sucks that we have to make our own pockets, it's so satisfying when they're done.
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@afewbugs Love your flo mask! So pretty!
@ConnyChiwa thank you! The front just snaps off so is very easy to paint - I sprayed it with primer and used acrylic paint pens
