A Time to Sew

We are well into spring now and summer is fast approaching.  There is so much to do!  When I wake up each morning, I hardly now where to start.  It seems that everybody is busy.  Most of us went from doing almost nothing in 2020 to being overwhelmed with things that now must be done or things that we want to do just for fun.

I have had very little time to sew lately.  My regular housecleaning chores keep calling me as well as preparing for a garage sale.  We are attempting to unload our basement of all the “stuff” we keep relegating to a spot down there.  To add to all those “must do chores”, our yard keeps screaming for attention.

My husband gave me an ultimatum.  Either clean the flower beds or get rid of them.  I knew at my age and in my current physical condition, I wasn’t going to be able to do the work.  I decided to call Smith Lawnscapes in St. Johns.  I discovered that getting rid of the flower beds would be expensive, so I decided I might as well try to save them.  Smith Lawnscapes did the hard work for me.  They did the weeding and pulled out the dead or just plain ugly plants.  All we had to do was purchase the plants and pay for Smith’s services.  After visiting approximately 15 greenhouses in both Michigan and Indiana, we had all the replacement plants.  Smith Lawnscapes returned and put in the new plants and pulled more weeds.  They did a great job and now our yard looks a lot better.  The best part is they will return once a month to keep things looking good!

The decision to hire a lawn service was difficult for me to make.  I don’t relish the idea of having someone else clean up my mess, but I know my limitations.  I also want some time to sew and this will give me time to do that. 

I remember the book, 10-20-30 Minutes to Sew, by Nancy Zieman.  Nancy advised sewers to set aside small units of time and work on small increments of a sewing project.  In one of those time slots, you could gather the supplies, prepare your pattern, cut out the project, mark the pieces, add interfacing, or sew seams.  The idea is to do one thing at a time.  You don’t need to complete the project during one session at your sewing machine. 

We all have 24 hours a day.  If we want to spend some of that time sewing, we need to allocate time for it and be ready to sew.  It can be done.  It is nice if you have space where you can leave your project out and ready to sew when you have another “sewing allocated” period of time.  That way you don’t waste any time setting up to sew.  Even if you have to put your project away, if you keep everything together, you can use those small increments of time to work on a project.

Many years ago, I walked each morning with two of my neighbors before getting ready for work.  I told them I was making my daughter’s wedding gown and the gowns for her maid of honor and bridesmaids.  Both Lynda Roof and Judy Boettger offered to help.  We were all busy, but we decided to give up our morning walks and instead use that time from 5:00 a.m. – 6:00 a.m. to work on the gowns.  I had sewing machines and a serger set up each morning with everything ready to sew.  This worked and was so much fun!  I have really great neighbors.  We all still live in the same neighborhood and I will always be grateful for their help. 

Although I haven’t had a lot of time to sew recently, I have finished two projects.  Pictures of the items are shown below. 

 

I made the lime green capris from fabric given to me by a member of the American Sewing Guild, Colleen Bofysil.  A couple of years ago, I made a skirt from the same piece of fabric.  I still have another length of the same fabric, but am not quite sure what I will sew from it.  Maybe I will make a coordinating jacket for the skirt and capris pants.

Save some time to sew and have fun doing it.  Remember, if you can only sew a few minutes, those minutes will be enough to eventually complete a project.  This is definitely better than not sewing at all!

 Judy

 

It Is Almost Here!

It is coming!  I can feel it.  I can almost see “normalcy” on the horizon.  The snow has gone.  Spring has sprung and people are beginning to meet each other outdoors and in very small groups indoors.  I know we aren’t there yet because Michigan’s Covid-19 numbers are still high, but there are encouraging signs.  I think we are well on the way to a better year than the one we just experienced. 

I am looking forward to the return of our regular in-person sewing guild meetings.  I want to see the projects everyone has made and not view them over zoom.   I want to view live demonstrations of sewing techniques without struggling to view them on-line.  Our Zoom meetings have been better than not having meetings, but there is nothing like a real in-person gathering of sewing enthusiasts. 

The Lansing Clippers’ charity sewing project for this year is the same as last year.   We are continuing to make clothes for babies and toddlers to give to the Infant and Children’s Closet at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Lansing.  Recently, I focused on making items for this charity.  I needed something simple to sew after all the fitting and pattern hacking I had done for my last few posts.   I told myself I would do some “mindless sewing”, but mindless sewing is not a real thing.  All sewing takes concentration, even simple sewing.  Yes, the patterns I used to make the children’s clothing were simple, but I still had to focus on what I was doing.  For example, after I finished the purple shorts, I noticed that I made a mistake when I finished the edge of one of the side seams.  As I serged the edges of the seam, I caught part of the shorts under the serger needle and serged it into the seam.  Fortunately, that part of the shorts didn’t get under the serger knife, so I was able to rip it out and re-serge the seam.  A picture of the garments is shown below.

 

As part of the simple sewing, I also made some baby items to be used as a shower gift.    I made 3 small bibs, 3 larger bibs, 3 burp cloths, and a couple of receiving blankets.  This would be a good project to start if you haven’t sewn in a while and just want something simple to do to get back into sewing again.  As I said before, no sewing is really mindless sewing but there are a lot of simple projects you can sew.  A picture of the baby items is shown below.

 

If you need a project to sew, just google whatever you have in mind.  There are all kinds of projects with on-line instructions just waiting for you!  Sewing can be relaxing and fulfilling.  It is also a hobby that can be shared.  Sewing with a friend is twice as fun as sewing alone.  You can learn from each other and creativity seems to flow easier when you can collaborate with others.  Even if you can’t get together with others yet, make some plans to sew with others as soon as the conditions allow. 

Have fun sewing!  If I can answer any questions for you, please let me know.

Judy