I finished sewing a pair of pants today that I started in October and that were likely abandoned in the crunch time costume days leading up to Halloween. Then unhelpful to the cause were all those things to make for Christmas, and as the mercury continued its perpetual winter dive, it seemed less and less pressing to make a pair of seasonally impractical linen pants. Last weekend though I thought finishing a project might help with the very particular breed of gloom associated with approaching March and the memory of a naive self imagining everyone would stay home for two weeks and then life would continue onward, everyone in tow, business as usual. And- if the melancholy persisted, the effort would at least resolve the mess that was a half finished pair of pants sitting idly on a chest in the corner of our bedroom, 4-ish months and counting.
Here to report that in my new trousers I feel handsome and pulled together, a small personal victory I'll confess. I love the hand stitched little buttonhole and do not for a second regret avoiding the headache that is making two perfectly matching back pockets by scrapping them all together. I have accepted that they'll need to be paired with long johns until at least May if I prize my personal warmth at all (and I do). There are small and frivolous tragedies to acknowledge in the above images- that the sun was too low to take a picture anywhere other than pressed tightly between the window and the cookstove where a full shot of the pants was a complete impossibility, rendering their delightful shape half-lost; also that I didn't realize the button needed moving (to better cover the top of the zipper) until after the pictures were taken. But, a finished object nonetheless, and in a world rife with actual tragedy who could genuinely complain (not moi). So! A pair of pants for spring. Or, for staying home, long as the winter may be.
{Pattern is Arthur Pants by Sew Liberated and Specks and Keepings, the pattern being available at the former. I used a deep green light-as-clouds linen from Fiddlehead's, a birthday splurge undoubtedly and non, je ne regrette rien!}
I started the month with the goal to show up in this space daily, the thought being that it would dust off the cobwebs, grease the gears, rattle loose the brain debris that always feels to sit lodged between me and a regular writing habit. Turns out though- it's the demands of my children and our home and the life we've chosen to pursue- it's all of that more than it ever was a lack of effort on my part to carve out this very specific thing I want for myself. I would choose them all again and again- the children, the house, the homestead -but. But. There is a chronic nagging that that final piece, the writing or teaching or the side hustle rooted in my creative endeavors, is so damn elusive. It feels silly- but I had thought I might have some answers by the end of January. Perhaps February, then?
