This video was going to start something like if you're stuck
finding time sewing like I am,
I'm going to challenge myself to sew 20 minutes a day and see what
I can get done.
I did do that challenge, but it was a total epic failure.
I totally failed at it because look
it's still in pieces.
And that was so long ago.
I want to instead talk about sewing routines
because this is what it was all about and why this sewing routine failed for me
and how you might be able to find a sewing routine that works for you.
In your unique schedule to
welcome back my sewing friends.
It is wonderful to see you here.
And as you already know, there are no surprises here.
Yes. This bundle of fabric here, it means
that that sewing twice for 20 minutes a day was an epic fail.
Not that I actually had the intention of finishing the project.
So I started out
on that journey and failed and still making a video about it.
And that's because I know I'm not the only one that sets out to set sewing goals.
Sewing challenges, trying to find the time to sew in a routine and has failed.
And I know that there are so many of you as well.
You might be feeling this too, that you're just trying to find the time to sew
and you try different things and it's just not working.
And you know what?
That's okay because we all have unique schedules
and it's about finding the right routine the right schedule for you,
and you'll see why this routine did not work for me in my schedule whatsoever.
Case in point.
Well, let's talk about that later.
So what was this challenge to start with?
I thought it would be great to do 20 minutes a day.
I thought, excellent.
Just a small little amount, a push to do something every day.
Right? That sounds great.
See what I could do in a week and not even I was going to do it every two weeks
and not like every single day, because that probably won't work.
Either. I mean, that wouldn't work for me,
but 20 minutes per day per week and see what I can get done.
It wasn't about finishing a project.
It was just about see what I could get done.
And I thought that would be a great
maybe way to just try and push myself to just get something done right.
It sounds great on paper.
Best laid plans, right? Best laid plans.
You know what? Let's see. What we did.
What I actually did get done and where I started out on this journey.
And of course,
it's day one, so I'm ready to go I've prewashed my fabric.
And what I plan on doing today is getting this cut out.
I must admit, I will have to finish cutting out this
if it takes longer than 20 minutes, because I'll need my tape back afterwards.
So hopefully it doesn't take any longer, but I'm going to speed
through this process and hopefully get it finished.
One small problem arose whilst cutting out.
It was a little bit too wide for my fabric, so I did actually pivot out
just a tiny bit of fullness on the fly
on my pattern here, on the fabric to make it work.
Everything's cut out.
My time is up.
I do technically
have my interfacing to still cut, so I'm going to go ahead and do that
because as I said, I need tablespace for vintage sewing school.
Lessons like this has to be clear, so I have to finish on my cutting.
But so far, so good.
I'll put that in my 5 minutes
of packed down type time because I need to clean it all up and do that interfacing.
But that was quite quick. I'm surprised
OK, we're at day
two and well, I know what I said about needing space for the table.
Yeah.
So I'm going to use my prep time to clear out this table space
because I really need it
I don't know about you, but I can not start a new project
until I have a clean space and packed up the last one.
Are you with me?
Leave your comments below I actually love to hear how many are OCD about that.
Like me.
Anyway, prep done.
I actually did a thread my machine as part of the preparation as well,
and now I'm ready to start sewing for my 20 minutes today.
And what am I going to do?
Let's see
Thanks to my plan here.
Order of construction.
Skirt, shell and waistband.
So yes, of course. Wonderful.
Then the waist seem okay.
I think.
Actually, if I can get that started, get the shell of the band in the skirt going.
If I can do that today, that will be amazing. So
okay.
That might have been a little bit of a mishap.
I did forget to cut the other piece of the waistband and interfacing
Okay, so I'm doing that now.
I've still got a couple of minutes left
Scissors OK.
All right.
Technically, it was a few minutes over, but I couldn't stop.
I had to finish this.
So I have sketched how complete
waistband I need to press, and I am going to do that.
Yeah, the iron's hot.
How can I not?
But that is my 20 minutes for today.
So, Gert, shell done.
Waistband, shell done.
Just go to iron this.
I have to finish it.
Okay.
Day three.
And I'm going to work on my pockets today because they need to be made
before I can put them on to my waistband.
I'm going to have these inside them as a patch pocket slowly this side
and this side open so it all up and then turn it through and then top stitch it on
folding over those extra seam allowances as my pocket with some decorative
covered buttons that I've already prepared
OK. 20 minutes is set on the clock,
but I can tell you right now, 20 minutes is not long enough.
I feel very stressed and like game show
type sewing here with only 20 minutes
per day to sew, which is not the goal of what I was doing here.
So I'm going to sew up these pockets, as I said.
And what I'm going to do is also in the rest of my 20 minutes
because this won't take too long as it is fagged out
is start my scene finishes
on my skirt show because
well I'm going to hand fell down remember And
that takes a long time so it's going to take more than 20 minutes.
I don't want to bore you with that
hand sewing and I feel like me I know a lot of
you like to this is what I do in hand so I don't really count that as like sewing.
I sit down and watch a movie
or put a podcast on or something like that and just relax and hand so.
So I don't want 20 minutes stress on my hand sewing.
So I'm going to finish those separately, not counted in my 20 minutes.
I think you'll forgive me
because this isn't about finishing a project in 20 minutes a day.
It's about
what happens when you set yourself a goal of sewing for 20 minutes a day.
I can tell you already
I have my
ideas of where this is going, but
let's not get to conclusions just yet.
So anyway, I need to keep sewing.
I'll see you tomorrow and next day.
And that didn't work out so well, didn't
I still have the same little pile that many that much time later?
Than I did back then.
So first of all, why didn't this work for me?
Why did I not was I not able to continue with this?
So I think two main reasons
for me in my schedule when I'm sewing my unique schedule
is that my sewing room here is not just for me for personal sewing.
This is my workspace for I'm filming tutorials for vintage
sewing school and teaching lessons and getting workshops ready.
And so this is my filming studio as well.
And so
I don't know
how many of you have filmed before, but it means that I've got cameras,
a light set up, I've got projects midway through things and it's often over
several days, and I can't really stop and go and move that stuff around
because it takes like so long to set that up that
I couldn't really do
it in between when I'm doing my projects and my work.
It just didn't work to then come into my studio
and mess it up and then it created more work for myself rather than not.
So I found that really hard to work around.
My work schedule is in my sewing space was taken up by other things
that I needed so doing 20 minutes every day was just not practical
for me to jump in and ruin my whole set, so to say mid,
mid filming projects for vintage sewing school.
And the other reason was that, well, I felt incredibly
rushed and stressed with only 20 minutes per day.
Did you pick that up on the way through I felt that 20 minutes was like
very stressful.
I think I have feel for those contestants on the Great British Sewing Bee, right?
When they've got like time is running and manic.
So I thought really stressed and like
I had to get something done in 20 minutes only and I was rushing
rather than enjoying the process of just sewing what I'm saying.
But again, that might.
Yeah.
So what I would do differently and what I've said and other things
since then, right?
So this is just this project is still well
it wasn't about finishing the project, it was just to see what I could get done.
But nothing else has been done on that project.
I've seen other things because they fit in with my schedule
and they're for vintage sewing school and different projects and everything
I've had to do that fit into my schedule better.
So what am I going to do differently in my sewing schedule next time?
Because we all have unique
our lives are all different, right?
We have unique things that we need to find a system that works for us in our way.
And I'm using mine as an example here so you can see maybe where you can
look at your own sewing routines and what find
something that really works for you because I know just like I do,
I know you want to find the time to for your sewing and your hobby too.
And it is up to us to make the time to make this happen.
Time just doesn't appear for us.
We have to make the time and that's what this is about.
So what am I doing differently?
I think the 20 minutes timeframe is not really conducive for me.
It's a bit stressful,
a bit
short, maybe if I was going to change that to be just one thing.
So, you know, be it the waistband or I finished the hem or I finished the make
the buttons kind of like one mini project inside the project, you know what I mean?
Because I don't like to leave things incomplete.
And if I only have 20 minutes or more or less, it's hard to do.
I don't like to leave things halfway through something.
So I'm making all the covered buttons.
I'm going to make all of them not just stop at two, if that's all I got done.
So having might be one thing,
but more so for the time schedule,
the problem that I faced for the filming in my studio.
So that was a little bit harder to navigate.
I think what I'm going to look at doing is maybe set aside a single day
or a time or an afternoon and have that that works around my filming as well.
So when I've got things set up,
I know there's sort of certain days usually I can kind of
maybe work out when I'm not mid project and I can mess up my studio with
me doing personal sewing projects that I want to get done
and maybe something like that works, or also just
working in my sewing into fun projects that I'm going to do eventually.
So in school, when,
when things are already being sold, I can jump in more easily.
So I'm going to have to navigate working around that schedule as well
because I'm not always actually at my studio here as well.
This is my working studio.
I also need my,
well, my, my home has I needed I know this
sewing mini studio, if you will,
to do some of these projects as well.
I think will definitely really, really work for me.
But that is another story for another day.
So that is my epic fail
story of trying to sew for 20 minutes per day
and why it didn't work for me but I think it would work for someone
if, say, your sewing space was just your sewing space,
you could literally just jump in
and leave your projects literally still at the sewing machine
and be able to keep going every single day and just pick up a little bit.
It would totally work to just, OK, jump in, you've got 20 minutes
and do something depending on your personality.
Maybe you like to do a thing
like I was talking about or just a time frame, like 20 minutes, half now, hour,
whatever it is, or do bigger chunks you know, I've got 2 hours tonight
or 2 hours on Saturday and 2 hours on Tuesday night, something like that.
But I think it is about setting yourself a sewing date
as I like to call it, with my students that are into sewing school.
I always encourage them to do that as if you're going to a sewing class
like you paid money to go to a sewing class and that is your sewing date.
You make it because that's how we make time for our sewing.
I would really love to hear from you below.
What are your sewing routines?
What has worked for you?
I want to hear it because I want to be inspired by what you've been able
to work into your lifestyle and why it works for you.
What systems and routines have you in place to make the time for sewing?
Remember, read those comments below because you'll get inspired
just like I will and make sure you like and comment on those comments and like.
We are a community here and we are all helping each other get better at sewing.
That is what we're for. So please do that.
And if you know someone who's struggling to find time for their sewing,
I'd be so happy if you shared this video or any other videos
that you find of mine here because it helps me and this channel grow
and we can find more people and really it's we're all here
to help encourage and just get better at sewing garments.
That's what we're all here for. So it does help that.
So every little shared like and comment that you do does really help.
So thank you for all of those.
Well, until next time. My sewing friends.
Happy sewing by.