Sewing When There's No Time To Sew

(Nothing is safe... Frankie works out how to get to the sewing machine)

That's a ridiculous title for a blog post, of course. I haven't worked out a way to stretch or exist outside the regular parameters of time. However, despite being a SAHM to two young children and a part time sewing teacher, at the moment I'm managing to find a surprising amount of time to sew. I talked about the 'why' in my Ease Into Motherhood post last July, and today I want to write a little bit about 'how'.

A big mistake...

When Dolores (who is now four) was a tiny baby, I went through a horrible, but thankfully brief, period of thinking that I should spend any time that she was asleep doing things that were related to her care. Once I'd got her down for a nap, I'd take care of my own basic needs and then I'd get started on the laundry, washing up, etc. until she woke up. I guess I felt that that was what a Good Mum was meant to do. I planned to have my 'me time' (to sew, read blogs and write my own) in the evening once she was down for the night. But in reality, I was always too tired and would end up watching TV feeling frustrated. Let me tell you that this formula is the road to depression and resentment. It took me a while, but I finally learnt that being a martyr to your child is not being a Good Mum; it doesn't best serve yourself or your family.

Finding my sewing groove

I was lucky that as an older baby and little toddler, Dolores use to have sizeable and consistent naps, so I was able to get quite a bit of sewing done during those couple of years. When she dropped napping altogether, sewing had to be relegated back to an evening-only activity. But it was such a deliciously solitary thing to do after each full-on day of toddler-wrangling, that my depth of desire to sew, if only for half an hour each evening, helped me overcome the tiredness that might have stopped me doing any at all. 

Second time around

When I was pregnant with Frankie, I had a word with myself to make sure I wouldn't fall into the martyr-mum role again. I knew that caring for a newborn and a 3yo at the same time was going to be a whole new level of challenging, and that carving out tiny pockets of time to sew was going to be essential if I was going to get through it without my mental health laying in tatters by the time we reached Frankie's first birthday. To avoid the aforementioned frustration and resentment, I kept my aims really low. Like, 10 minutes a day low, for the first few months. And soon I found that I could complete one step of a project (like sticking a PDF together, or inserting the sleeves) per day. Time spent sitting underneath a feeding or snoozing baby, particularly when the big one was at nursery, gave me lots of time to think about each step, so when I did get the micro-opportunity to escape to my sewing corner, I could get stuck in straight away and be pretty productive.

(And the next day I turn my back for a minute and he's now actually ON the sewing table. 

Playing with pins)

Napportunities

The problem was, as he left the newborn stage, Frankie failed to fall into the lovely and reliable nap routine that Dolores had. His naps have been inconsistent and often quite short. So what to do? I found that if I spent however long his nap would be only sewing, then I'd find I had a massive amount of chores to do after he woke up with him all cranky because I wasn't giving him the attention he craved. But if I spent his scant naps only washing up and tidying, then enter our old friends frustration and resentment.

So I've found what works best for me is to flit between roles and tasks. For example: Frankie goes down for a nap, then I put the laundry on, then I do a bit of sewing, then I start the washing up, then I do a bit of sewing, then I finish the washing up, then I do a bit of sewing, then I tidy up a bit, then I do a bit of sewing, and so on until he wakes up. That might sound insane and exhausting, but it's genuinely the only way I've found I can make the most of however long he's going to stay asleep.

Plus, on the rare occasions that they are both happily engaged in something that doesn't involve me, you might catch me rethreading my overlocker or pinning the side seams...

CBeebies saved my life

Confession time: if Dolores isn't in nursery, I let her watch TV whilst Frankie takes his nap. Whatever your thoughts are on TV, I prefer her to not watch too much. But I've overcome my guilt of allowing her to see 1-2 hours a day because she's full-on, active and engaged the whole rest of the day.

Low expectations

Of course, this is only working for me because I have long since let go of being used to the great swathes of sewing time that I used to have before kids. I feel that the newborn phase of parenthood, where somedays getting to wash your hair can be an unobtainable luxury, does the job of making you feel grateful for the odd 10 minutes sewing time when you can grab it. And when 10 minutes of sewing expands in to an hour or two, that can feel like days!

But it is definitely worth reminding myself/ourselves that this early, super-dependant stage of childhood is very short lived. Can you believe I've just filled in Dolores's schools application?! Longer spells of sewing time will be with me again, I just hope I'll stay this productive!

What about you? Have you found any seemingly-bizarre ways to fit sewing in around a busy life (with or without kids)? Are you one of urban legends, for example, that set your alarm early to get some sewing done before work or the rest of your family wakes up?! Any tips you can share on what works for you?

Ease into Motherhood

Sewing and small children. In many ways, they seem to be sworn enemies of one another. Finding the physical and mental space to sew, whilst being present and available for kids who depend on you for pretty much everything sounds like an impossible task, or at least a recipe for disappointment and frustration. I often hear of women who used to sew before they had children, then stopped, and are trying to get back into it now that their children are older. I can totally understand the decision to not even bother trying to get any sewing done for the duration of your children's early childhoods. But for me, that's not an option, sewing is too big a part of my life. So today I want to talk about why and how I manage to sew whilst being a mum to two tiny peops. 

The prompt for this post came from an invitation to take part in 'Ease-in to Motherhood': a sewists' celebration of motherhood and the changes it brings to our lives, created and hosted by Monserratt, Jodi and Erin. Read here for the full details of this important and beautiful initiative. The motivation to create connection between mothers who sew is similar to my own reasons for setting up the recent dribble bib sewing swap (check out #greatsewingbibswap on Instagram). Anyways, the organisers of Ease-in Motherhood have left it super open about what to write about in relation to these topics, and at first I felt pretty overwhelmed as I have SO MUCH I want to say about all of it! A couple of months ago I felt a blog post brewing about my disgust at the damaging concept of 'bouncing back' after a pregnancy and birth, but I just read Jodi's touching piece on this subject in which she handles it with much more grace than my bile-filled rant probably would have done! So on with my contribution...

Somehow, I've become a stay-at-home-mum who does bits of paid work at the weekends. I never planned to be a SAHM. When Pat and I talked about how we saw our family operating before we had Dolores, we agreed to share the childcare and our freelance work endeavours 50/50, and to keep our child/children home with us rather than in childcare until they were about three years old. But the financial realities were such that two part-time freelance-whatever-you'd-call-what-we-do/did wasn't bringing in enough to live in this pricey part of a pricey country. So I ended up taking on the lion share of the childcare as Pat went out to work full-time, and things will probably stay this way until they are both at school. And the truth is, being a stay-at-home-mum is freaking hard, the hardest job I've ever, and will ever do, I have no doubt. One of the things about being a SAHM (or a SAHD, or any other type of full-time carer), is that no matter how many playdates, playgroups, playgrounds, classes or activities you get involved in, there is A LOT of being stuck at home involved. What's more, you are ALWAYS on call. I find it can be incredibly claustrophobic, and as an escape I have sewing. 

(Frankie caught trying to mess with my sewing machine)

So, sewing. I have to admit that my current relationship with sewing is bordering on compulsive. Working on sewing projects, having something to push forward with, has become even more important to me since having children than before. I'm not sure if the amount I think about (if not actively doing) sewing is healthy, but it is helping me get through this insanely intense part of motherhood so I can't see it changing for the foreseeable future. Sewing accesses a creative part of myself, a need to make stuff with my hands, that has always been part of who I am. And clothing has been the main way that I interpret and have a dialogue with society and popular culture since I was a teenager. 

But why has my need to sew amped up so much since becoming a mum? Partly, I think it's the desire to do something that doesn't get almost immediately undone (laundry, washing up, tidying etc.) but I'm also guessing that it's because I don't have much else to get my teeth into at the moment: my 'career' has somewhat stalled, I'm not developing any new classes to teach and I no longer organise the craft market I set up in 2010. And the other things I'm really inspired to do, like planning and going on trips and experimenting with growing food, are currently hampered by a lack of funds and any outside space. 

And then there's the final product. I get a lot of joy and pride from opening up my wardrobe and seeing that more than 90% has been made by me: that I have chosen how I wish to present myself to the world (which I then temper with the realities of my day-to-day life) and made it myself. Or to watch my kids running around having a crazy time, or contentedly chewing on a lego brick, whilst wearing something I made them. 

However, it's hard to square all this sewing that I'm doing (or planning to do) with my desire to live a vaguely sustainable life that does NOT include the constant acquisition of 'stuff'. So in an attempt to justify my out-put, I'm very careful to only work on garments and accessories for myself and my kids that will get used a lot, and I try to sew with my existing fabric stash or with secondhand textiles for a good proportion of my projects (which I know I could do better at). 

(sleepy faces selfie)

So how do I get the sewing get done with these small peops about? Mainly in my head. I'm mentally present when I'm with my kids and they want me to engage with them, but when I'm doing boring SAHM-related stuff like cleaning the kitchen, or breastfeeding in the middle of the night, I'll often be mulling over the next few steps of my current sewing project, or what I should use a certain piece of fabric for. So when they are in bed, or when one is at nursery and other is napping, I can ATTACK. I'm sure most people, including new(-ish) parents, will tell you that they are so much more productive with their spare time once it has become severely limited. 

But breaking it down further, I'd say that I find two types of chances for sewing. There's the longer stretches lasting an hour or two, like after they're in bed and the tidying up is done, or during a Frankie-nap on a Dolores-nursery day. (The annoying thing is that Frankie sleeps in our bedroom, which is where my sewing table also lives, so I have to remember to take everything that I'll need for the sewing sesh out of there and into the lounge before putting him down.) And then there's the micro-sewing opportunities. These are the teensy windows of time in which you can do something small to aid your project. Like the incredibly rare times that they are both playing and no one needs me, I might change over the threads on my overlocker. Or whilst I'm waiting for the potatoes to boil, I might pin a sleeve into an armhole. Often I'll do other SAHM-related activities in those micro-windows, but the thing is that there are always SAHM-related activities you could find to do, so sometimes I claim the windows for myself and my mental health instead.

I've written this blog post like I undertake my sewing projects: in chunks of time here and there, so it's been on my mind for a while. And my conclusion is that I have not drawn a conclusion. I don't know if my current relationship with sewing is entirely positive, but it seems to be serving a necessary purpose. And I guess there could be worse things to be addicted to!

I'd love to know your thoughts on your relationship to sewing, particularly through motherhood. Did you manage to maintain one? If so, any tips? How has it changed as your kids have got older? Did you ever find yourself getting a bit obsessed with sewing when you were going through a particularly tricky or intense stage of your life?