Day 202 | Some more about shrinking

I was wearing these jeans every day for 6 months and writing about it every day, right up until day 195. I then decided to only write about them every week, on Mondays, and it's been so tough. I thought it was going to be easy, to write less, not realising just how much part of my daily life this blog has become. There's still so much to learn, and so many people I meet via this blog, but I have other projects like this, which are now starting to take up a lot more of my time, but more on that, another day.

I was asked in a comment this week just how much the jeans have shrunk, so I thought I'd answer the question in this post. If I was to buy raw denim jeans again, I would make sure that they fit me perfectly around the waste and in length, or perhaps a bit longer. You have no control over how much they will shrink when you wash them the first time, so I wouldn't try and judge the right size by that when I buy new jeans.

The thing with wearing the jeans for 6 months have a lot to do with stretching the denim in all the right places naturally, by just wearing them. When they then shrink, they shrink all over, hence a better fit all over.

Have a look at the two photos of the legs of the jeans, just behind the knees. They are the same size. By that I mean the creases are the same size in all the photos if you were to put them on top of each other, but the width of the legs are narrower in the washed versions on the right. And narrower by a lot. My jeans shrunk by around 2-3 cm all over, which seems like a lot when you look at a new pair, but not so much on a 6 month old pair that's been "worn in" and stretched.

Look at the difference in where the jeans hang over the heels of my shoes in the picture on the left. Photo one is before the wash and photo two is after the wash. They shrunk a lot, but now the length is perfect and I don't have to wear a belt or fold the hems up any more. So to finish off, don't worry about the shrinking when you buy a new pair of jeans, because 6 months is a long time, and a lot still needs to happen before you wash them the first time.