It is a fact about sewing (and pretty much any other craft) that I cannot complete a project without mishap. I only use one pattern for pants, but I always seem to be making some minor change—trying to deal with their distressing tendency to split in the seat, or else fiddling with the waistline yet again to keep it current with my own.

Even when I don’t run into trouble with the changes I’m making, there’s usually a piece that gets sewn wrong-side out, or a seam that extends where it should not. Or something completely different—this time I spent over half an hour searching for my seam ripper, which eventually turned up under a sofa cushion. It’s frustrating.

So why am I sewing pants instead of buying them? Granted, stores don’t carry pants that meet all my criteria. (Double-pleats, loose-fitting, not too tight at the waist but not too loose in the seat, soft fabric, useful pockets…) Still, I could probably pay a sewing pro to stitch up a pair to my specifications. I could even get them to finish the seams properly, which I haven’t done for this pair.

Maybe it’s the same as my reason for trying to make French bread. It’s the challenge of the thing.

That’s probably part of it, but I don’t think the situation is quite parallel. At any rate, while thinking about this, two other things kept coming to mind. The first is a comment that my husband made. It echoes something in a book by Stephanie Pearl McPhee, the Yarn Harlot. If I could remember which book, I would quote it, since she puts things so wonderfully. But I can’t, so I’ll have to approximate.

Knitting projects, like sewing projects, often go awry. Knitters end up ripping out mistakes and having to re-knit chunks of their project. Other times, they discover that the size small sweater has somehow turned out to be a giant’s size small. And so forth. Unless the knitter is restrained and keeps her frustrations to herself, at some point her spouse may inquire, “Do you really enjoy knitting?”

It’s a reasonable question, given the amount of grumbling.

And the answer is, “Yes, I really do enjoy knitting.” Even if this blasted hat won’t go around my head…. Grumble grumble.

It’s easy to see how sewing projects and knitting projects are connected. Less clear is why I kept thinking of a section from a book I had recently looked at, The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being, by Daniel M. Haybron. The part that struck me actually comes right near the beginning of the book. First, the author comments on an experience that led him to the topic of the book. He used to spend summers on a small fishing island as a child, and remembers it as being a very different world, a good place to be, “the only place I’ve ever felt like a fully developed human being.” Later, he compares two hypothetical societies, A and B, and describes them like this:

“Consider then, two communities, A and B. A typical member of A, on a typical day, is in more or less the following condition: at ease, untroubled, slow to anger, quick to laugh, fulfilled, in an expansive and self-assured mood, curious and attentive, alert and in good spirits, and fully at home in her body, with a relaxed, confident posture. A denizen of B, by contrast, is liable to be: stressed, anxious, tense, irritable, worried, weary, distracted and self-absorbed, uneasy, awkward and insecure, spiritually deflated, pinched and compressed. The differences, let us suppose, owe mainly to difference in the prevailing ways of life in these communities.”

A bit later he says,

“Notice that the descriptions of A and B made no explicit reference to happiness or unhappiness. But it should be reasonably apparent that, nonetheless, happiness is precisely what they were about: what A has in its favor is that its residents tend to be happy, whereas the people of B tend not to be.”

What has this got to do with my experience sewing pants? I’ve just said that sewing includes a significant amount of time spent fussily trying to adjust the pattern and then discovering that I’ve messed up and must rip out some seams, all of which tends to produce frustration and anger. The author’s description of society A involves people feeling good in various ways, while it is society B that is described as habitually tense and frustrated.

I’m stuck for a conclusion here. It seems trite to conclude simply that worthwhile activities involve some work, some parts that aren’t fun—but isn’t that what I’m saying? Or is there something more?

Maybe if I reread the book, which I don’t remember very well, I’ll have more to say. Meanwhile, I’ve got a nice new pair of pants.

Even if they do make me look nine weeks early for St Patrick’s Day.

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Till next post.