Saturday, July 28, 2018

The Case of the Flyaway Straight Pin

Alternate title:  How I Spent My Friday Morning

In the process of trying on my newly sewn pants with its generic trial waistband, I went into the closet to get the portable full-length mirror.  Something grabbed the waistband on the way out.  It was the groove/hole for the latch on the doorframe.  Oh, no, I thought, and checked the pants and nope, no hole and no pulled threads nor snags.  Whew!  However....

....one of the straight pins holding the band on had gone AWOL.  I made a quick check of the area and no pin in sight.  I checked on hands and knees next, using my super light, running my hand through the carpet fibers---and still no pin.  Since it's a low pile it would  be easy to spot.

Then I spotted the white pin head about three feet away, but that's all it was---the pin was not attached!  I continued to check carpet in all areas I thought the pin could possibly go;  I checked my person;  I checked my newly sewn pants.  The pin was definitely hiding quite well from me.

By now I've checked the carpet  a few times.  I have four choices:
1) continue looking
2) try vacuuming and hopefully---and maybe falsely---expecting it to be picked up
3) execute the most trustworthy of operations to find a missing sharp object:  going barefoot
4) quit looking and hope for the best

I must continue to look for the pin as I don't want my hubby's foot to find it.  After all, it's not his fault---nor mine either---but I am responsible for the event which led up to this.

Once more I go over the carpet, expanding the area to be covered slightly.  Nope, no luck.  This was exasperating me.  Where else could the pin be?  Well, it could be anywhere.  I have the lower rod for my blouses so decided to check them.  I would grab 2 or 3, shake them, then check the carpet.  When I was almost half-way through....there it was!!  There was the pin, no longer AWOL.  Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.



I picked up the pin and saw what had happened to it.  As seen in the photo one end of it had been bent into a 90 degree angle---a factory perfect right angle---which was quite impressive.

A lot of luck had been in play since the pin had given way and not done any damage to my yet unfinished pants.  I breathed a sigh of relief...well, more than one.

And that is how I spent Friday morning.

7 comments:

SewLibra said...

Congratulations on your successful sleuthing! You have given new meaning to the word "straight pin". :D That pin could not be a more perfect 90 degrees If you tried. Impressive!

glorm said...

Oh, thank you. Step-son once had a hand embroidery needle flee from him and he told me he had tried to find it, but couldn't. It took me awhile but I did find it, but that needle is quite a bit larger than a straight pin.

In the future I will have to walk further away from door jambs. LOL

SewLibra said...

Once I serged over a pin and it flew across the room, thankfully not hitting me in the eye! Half the pin was in the fabric and I finally found the other half by the door, on the opposite side of the room. For a long time I refused to use pins with my serger. Now I just go very slowly if I use them. Lesson learned!

glorm said...

Holy cow! Who knew that the sewing room could be such a dangerous place. Maybe we should take out extra insurance. LOL

I see Blogger used your updated pic. Very nice.

catspec said...

Nice!!! WOW.....good pin story there - glad you found it too and how did that angle occur?! WOW....reminds me of the time I punched a perfect hole in the head of a safety pin while quilting with a 16 Topstitch needle - Titanium kind.....WOW.....You changed the blog look, eh? FUN!

glorm said...

Thank you for commenting. See, had we tried for those perfect shapes, we would never have been able to achieve them.

Yes, I like to change the background every so often.

glorm said...

Test

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