Member-only story
Yesterday my husband pulled out a pair of his jeans from the bottom of a stack of stuff I am supposed to deal with and asked me (not for the first time) when I was going to finish shortening them for him. Ugggh, I thought. I hate shortening pants. Especially when my husband took the scissors to them and cut them off himself, making the job harder for me than it needed to be.
I think I managed to roll my eyes without him seeing, but I am not sure. He then gave me a hard time about how long he has been waiting. I promised I would get them done that night. He said something like, “Sure” with a thinly masked sarcastic tone and walked away.
To me, that meant the gauntlet had been thrown. I had to finish them or face even more shame. I started to work on them.
Once I had the hems pressed and sat back to stitch them, I began to relax. I actually love hand-sewing. I once made a corset entirely by hand sewing. I calculated it had over a million stitches in it. I loved every minute of the work.
For these pants I had been avoiding, once I got into the rhythm, the work became soothing. Sewing by hand, the repetition of the needle going in and out. Taking my time, trying to make each stitch the proper length. Making sure I don’t pick up too much of the…
