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How to Make More Time for Sewing

Episode 128: All about the blocks that we commonly encounter when we want to sew, but can't. And then six strategies that might help you to remove those blocks.

Posted in: Seamwork Radio Podcast • February 6, 2023 • Episode 128

We're debuting a new podcast show notes format! In the bulleted show notes, you'll find the biggest takeaways from the episode. Below the bulleted show notes, you'll find the complete podcast transcript formatted to read more like an article. From now on, we're going to include images, links, and hierarchical text so it's easier to scan.

So you'll still get the entire transcript, but it will be a little easier (and more fun) to read!

Podcast Transcript

Sarai
I'm Sarai.

Haley
And I'm Haley.

Sarai
And this is Seamwork Radio.

Welcome back to Seamwork Radio, where we share practical ideas for building a creative process so you can sew with more intention and joy.

And today we're talking about what to do if you feel like you can never find the time to sew. I think that's something all of us have experienced from time to time. So we're going to cover some of the blocks that we commonly encounter when we want to sew, but we can't. And then six strategies that might help you to remove those blocks.

Okay, let's start with our ice breaker for today. “What are some things that have brought you creative joy lately, Haley?”

Icebreaker: What has brought you creative joy lately?

Haley
OOH, I like this question as we're recording this. It's the end of 2022. You guys are all listening to this in in February, but I have a chunk of time ahead of me that I'm going to be able to take some time off, be able to do some things, hopefully creative things. And the regular me, typical Haley brain is like, let's plan it, let's schedule it, let's get a plan in action. And I'm forcing myself to not have a plan.

I'm going to schedule a couple of days for myself to just not schedule other things and hopefully do something creative. But I'm trying to lean into not having a plan, and that has me, like, really kind of extra excited for the stretch of time ahead of me instead of feeling like there's a whole other to do list that I'm going to have to tackle in my time off, it's just a little bit freeing.

So maybe I'll do something cool. Maybe I'll do nothing at all and just think a lot, and that's okay, too, but it's a creatively exciting idea that's really cool.

Sarai
I'm trying to be very mindful of that, too, because I want this break—he whole company goes on a break for a couple of weeks at the end of the year—and I want this break to be a time to rejuvenate. I think I did a really good job of that last year.

So I'm trying to I have a little list of things that I would like to do during that time that would be fun to do, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't do them. They're just kind of like a menu of things that I can do if I feel like it, which is nice.

Haley
I love that. A menu. I create little menus for myself from time to time. Maybe I'll copy that thought. Well, what about you Sarai? What are some things that are bringing you creative joy lately?

Sarai
Well, let's see. There are things that are bringing me joy, and there are things so this weekend, I decided to sew a curtain for my downstairs bathroom, and I was very excited about this. I ordered this linen from Europe that has these stripes on it. It was really cool. And we've had this, like, really busted shade in our downstairs bathroom for a long time, for months and months was literally safety pinned together, and it looked terrible. And I got this fabric and I was really excited.

And I thought, this is going to be great because it's such an easy project. It's going to take me an hour at the most. It's not even a full curtain. It's a cafe curtain. It's really small. And I was really excited about it.

And then I decided I didn't want to make a pocket curtain. I wanted to make I don't know if you've seen these cafe curtains that have, like, ties on the top, so it just ties onto the rod. So I decided I wanted to do that. But I didn't have that much fabric. The fabric that I bought was just enough for the curtain because I didn't want to have any left over and want to be wasteful.

So I decided to make the ties really small and thin, and I wanted them to be finished on one side. So I was going to turn each tie independently instead of just one long tube and then cutting it into strips.

And it was a huge mistake. It ended up being such a nightmare. I was trying to turn, like, 24 tiny, tiny little tubes.

I don't own a bodkin. So I was using a safety pin. And the safety pin kept opening inside of the tube. And I tried different safety pins, I tried a needle and thread, which is one thing. The thread kept breaking. I tried all my tricks.

I've done this a million times, but it was too thin. And a couple of them, even though I double stitched the seam, started unraveling. And one of them, the safety pin got stuck and I had to cut it open to get it out.

And I was cursing. I was so frustrated. I haven't been this frustrated sewing in years. I was so frustrated. And I think the most frustrating part about it was that I thought this was going to be a really easy 1 hour project. And it was not at all.

In the end, it looks like it was a easy 1 hour project, but it wasn't. And I ended up having to cut the ends anyway, so they'd be raw on one end anyway, which looks great. It looks fine. I was just so frustrated.

But the reason I'm answering this for what's bringing me creative joy is that when I was done and I finished and I hung it up and I stepped back and I looked at it, I was like, oh, that was fun. I want to sew something else now.

Like, immediately, all the anger was gone, and I was just like, oh, what else can I sew?

And I actually made this blanket that I'm sitting on right now after that, which is just a piece of fabric that's finished on the ends.

But it was such a funny experience because I realized that all of that frustration is just part of the process, and it happens sometimes, but somehow there's still some kind of enjoyment that I get from it, even in spite of all those challenges.

And sometimes it's not like that. Sometimes you just want to throw it out the window and never look at your sewing machine again. But in this case, I don't know, I was able to put it aside and just say, well, I don't know, that wasn't too bad, even though it was.

Haley
Well, it helps that it turned out in the end. That probably helps with the feelings of satisfaction—ultimately being satisfied anyway.

Sarai>
Yeah, it was very satisfying to hang it up and to take down that busted shade and step back and look at it and see how much nicer it looked. So that was probably a part of it.

All right, well, if you have an icebreaker that you want to share for a future episode, if you're a Seamwork member, you can leave it at Seamwork.com/go/icebreakers, and we'll probably use it on a future episode.

All right, so we're going to talk about time today, which is one of my favorite subjects to talk about. We are all short on time. I think all of us feel like we're short on time. I don't know very many people who don't feel that way. And whether you have a busy career or you have a home to take care of, or you have kids or parents or other people to take care of, or all these things in your life, maybe illness, you probably feel like you have more than you could possibly do in a given week. That is such a common feeling. So when you feel that way, how do you carve out time for the things that you really enjoy, like sewing?

So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And Haley, I want to start with a question, which is, how do you feel when you're really busy and really rushed?

How do you feel when you’re rushed?

Haley
Beyond the feelings of anxiety, which I associate with feeling busy and feeling rushed, is I just feel not very creative and not very fulfilled. When I feel like I'm just living a life of checking things off of the to do list, I would say those are the top two unfulfilled and not creative.

Sarai>
Yeah, I definitely feel that, too. It's hard to be creative when you feel like you're in a rush or you have a limited amount of time to do it. I feel like creativity often at least starts, It’s not always this way, but I think the seeds of creativity, when a creative idea first starts, it needs a lot of openness and a lot of space, and that's hard to get when you're feeling really rushed.

I read a blog post a while ago that said something like being rushed is like being in an altered state and you make decisions and you do things that you would never ordinarily do.

I thought that was really interesting because I do often feel like when I'm really rushed that I'm in a totally different state of mind and it is sort of like being, I don't know, not drunk. It is definitely a negative altered state, though. I don't know. You're not as smart, you're not as thoughtful. You're more easily irritated. You're more easily angered. You get frustrated with silly little things like somebody cutting you off in a parking lot — you’re not yourself—I think when you're feeling that way, and I've noticed that a lot.

And that's been something that I've been trying to deal with and trying to address, because I often do feel rushed, and I really don't like that feeling.

Haley
What would you say is your relationship to that feeling?

Sarai
I think it's hard to overcome. It's something that I would like to overcome, that feeling of being in a rush all the time. But I feel like it's very, for me, it feels very habitual.

It feels very much like I'm so used to trying to cram as much stuff into my day as I can that it just feels like something that happens to me rather than something that I can control, which is not true. I can definitely control it, but it doesn't feel that way in the moment. It feels like all this stuff is happening to me and I just have to deal with it. That's kind of how I feel.

Actually. I wrote about this on my personal I have a personal newsletter now. If you're interested in it, you can go to saraimitnick.com. It's my first name, last name dot com, and you'll find it there. But I wrote about this recently and that I'm trying to have a couple of times during the day where I really don't do anything else other than focus on what I'm doing.

So I take a walk in the morning, try to just focus on taking a walk in the morning, not listening to podcasts or audio books or anything like that.

I try to have one meal a day at least. I'm really just focusing on what I'm doing, what I'm eating. And that's been really difficult for me. That's been a really big challenge for me. But it's also been very healthy. And so I don't know, I feel like there are little things that I've tried to do to overcome this feeling of being rushed. It's definitely something I think about a lot, obviously, because I do feel like it really affects me.

What about you?

Haley
Oh, gosh. I would have to agree that in some ways, the busyness is habitual for me. And that's something that I've definitely been unpacking and dealing with in my own life and how I get into these kinds of situations of being kind of chronically busy.

And for me personally, and I imagine that this is something that a lot of people deal with, it just comes down to exploring my own my boundaries. Not just my boundaries with other people, but the boundaries that I set with myself and how I respect my own time.

I think my relationship with busyness is improving, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and you have to take a lot of accountability with yourself to kind of acknowledge the ways that you can be your own worst enemy when it comes to this. Because of course, there's lots of outside things that I have less control over that keep me busy. But a lot of it is kind of in my own hands.

Sarai
It's funny what you say about setting boundaries with yourself because I was just talking about that at work the other day. I was talking about this project that I was supposed to do and I did not finish. And I was saying, I was telling somebody at work that I need to set better boundaries with myself about what I take on. And she was laughing at me. “You need to have a conversation with yourself and talk to yourself about your boundaries.” I was like, yeah, I do, because I'm not clear with myself sometimes about what I'm actually able to do.

I think the other thing that comes into play is that being busy all the time has positive results. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't acknowledge is that some bad habits that we develop throughout our lives, we develop because we get positive results from them, even though they take a mental toll. And so it's not necessarily a problem you can or want to eradicate completely, but it's more something that you have to manage throughout your life. And that's hard because it's very squishy. It's not something you can just overcome.

It's something that you just have to be cognizant of. Because I think if you're busy and you're doing a lot of things and you're accomplishing a lot, that's not wholly bad. It's got good stuff to go along with it. The problem, I think, is when that becomes more important to you than your own well being.

Haley
I totally agree. I'm curious, how has your relationship with busyness changed as you've gotten older?

How has busyness changed since you’ve gotten older?

Sarai
It's changed a lot. I feel like I used to really revel in being busy and really enjoy the feeling of being busy and having a lot to do and getting things done and checking things off. And more and more I find it kind of exhausting and never-ending, like I'm on a treadmill instead of feeling like I'm accomplishing things.

And I also think I have gotten I don't know if I'm worse at it, but I feel like I'm worse at it multitasking. I feel like just doing bouncing from thing to thing and having no focus throughout my day really takes a toll on me in a way that I don't feel like it used to, or maybe I just wasn't as aware of it when I was younger. What about you?

Haley
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. The toll it seems to take on me is greater now than I remember it being before. Maybe my memory just isn't that great. But I feel like the busyness takes away from other parts of —when I let it get out of control—it takes away from other parts of my life. Be that my ability to be present with my friends and my family and my ability to be present with myself and the things that make me happy, like sewing.

So that's kind of what we're going to talk about today, is we're going to share the things that we've done that have kind of helped us to combat the ever present busyness and to create some more time for our own sewing practices. So Sarai, do you want to kick us off with your tips?

Tips to Create More Time to Sew

Sarai>
Yeah, I'm going to share a few. The first one, and this is something that I have given a lot of thought to. And again, I think this is one of those things where it's about managing rather than eradicating, but that is to identify what your time thieves are.

Identify your time thieves

Sarai

And when I say time thieves, what I mean is those things that take up a lot of time unintentionally. You don't intend to take up a lot of time in your life, but they end up taking a lot of time in your life. And these might be things that feel good to you in the moment. They might feel like a good way to destress or to relax, but then you end up doing them for far longer than you intended to do. And I think if you notice that, if you notice that you're spending a lot more time than you would like on something, that might be a hint to you to take another look at it.

So a lot of these things I think, will probably come to mind for you already, but they might be things like:


  • Scrolling through social media for hours at a time

  • Binge-watching a TV show or even binging on a podcast or something like that

  • Things that you don't really intend to spend a lot of time on— like falling into a black hole on Facebook or Reddit or any place like that

There's a lot of different ways that people spend time unintentionally. And I think one thing to keep in mind is whether these are things that you're doing to truly relax, or if these are things that you're doing more to zone out and just forget about everything else that's going on in your head.

And I think that's a difficult distinction to make in the moment sometimes, because I think it's totally fine to have these things that help you zone out, because we all need to zone out from time to time. And I'm not shaming anybody for spending time on social media or on TV shows or whatever you do that you enjoy and that just helps you to relax at the end of the day. It’s totally fine, but it's like having a glass of wine at the end of the day, it's good. But if you're having ten glasses of wine, you might think about where that's coming from.

So I think this is something that I've really tried to be mindful of in the last couple of years. I set a boundary for myself. It was probably a year ago, I think. I was just looking back at my “resolutions.” They weren't really resolutions, but some things that I wrote at the beginning of the year last year, and one of them was to stop watching TV at all on weekdays. And I've actually kept that up. And it hasn't been difficult once I got used to it at all. And it gave me a lot more space for doing things like reading books or sewing or doing other things that I enjoy. And I feel like they really mean something to me.

And that's not to say that watching a movie or watching TV is bad because I still do it on the weekends. It's just finding those little ways that you can manage those unintentional time thieves.

Do you feel like that's true for you too, Haley?

Haley
Yeah, I mean, I think like anyone, I can fall into these kind of zone-out holes, but I try to be mindful of it. Lots of times when most nights I bathe Charley and then Eric reads her books and puts her to bed and during that time, it's usually like 20 minutes—I give myself permission. That's my time where I get to just kind of zone out and it just kind of feels good on my brain. But then once he's done, then I, like, move on from it. And I think having little tactics like that, these times that I give myself permission, my hall pass to zone out with boundaries really is good and it's healthy and I like it because it's not a one-way. It's not black or white. I'm not saying it's not an all-or-nothing kind of mentality, which for me, in my personal experience, I found is my happy place for most things.

Sarai
I think for me also, there are certain things that actually I was doing that didn't feel good, but it was still a way to distract myself. And I think for a lot of people, social media fits into that category, at least at times.

For me, reading the news constantly, I got into a habit for a while where I was just constantly reading the news and all the horrible stuff going on in the world. And not to say that you shouldn't be aware of what's going on in the world, but doing it that much, that often was, for me, not feeling like it was adding to my life. So just kind of starting to recognize those things was really, really helpful to me.

Schedule a little block of creative time.

Sarai

My next tip is to schedule a little block of creative time. So this is something that I've been trying to do on the weekends. And when I say creative time, rather than trying to schedule in an hour or two or three to sew or an hour to draw or something like that, I'm trying to schedule a single block of creative time where I can pretty much do whatever I want that's creative.

So this could be sewing, it could be writing, it could be drawing, it could be just organizing my sewing room, putting all my supplies away, whatever it is that makes me feel like I'm honoring my creativity, I try to give myself that time to do it.

And what I like about this is that it's very flexible. Whatever I feel like doing in the moment, I can do. And also, I just don't feel like it's another to-do on my to-do list. It just feels like a happy time where I get to do what I feel like. It's like my little gift to myself instead of feeling like, oh, well, I scheduled 2 hours to write, and if I don't do that, then I'm a failure today. So that's been feeling really good to me. I know. Haley, you said you've been trying to schedule two-hour blocks of time for sewing.

Haley
Yeah, I do. 2 hours is my length, my sweet spot when it comes to amount of time for sewing. And this is something on the nights that I don't take 20 minutes to zone out, I do this. When Eric is putting Charley down, I kind of, like, kick off my sewing time in my room. And again, when we're on break, I have a couple of days set aside that I'm going to be doing this, and it's kind of exciting to see what's going to come. What am I going to do? I don't know. Tune in next time to find out what Haley does.

Sarai
It's almost like, makes you anxious, at least for me, a little bit nervous, like, will I use my time wisely? And then you have to sort of peel that back, too.

Haley
Yeah, I look at it. It's kind of like when scheduling a date night, except it's a date night with yourself, so that's kind of like a fun way to think of it. I have a date night scheduled every other week with my husband. I don't always know what we're going to do, and sometimes we do something real fun and exciting, and sometimes we just go somewhere simple up the street, like a local haunt, and that's fine. And it's the same with my sewing time. I just schedule it. And it doesn't have to be grand. It just has to be.

Sarai
We used to have date nights before we moved to the country where there's nothing, nowhere to go, and every date night ended up being the same at home. All right, number three, this is my third tip, which is to re examine all your creative outlets and decide what's enough for you right now.

Decide what’s enough for you right now

Sarai

So I don't know about you guys, but I have a lot of different hobbies. So I love to sew, I also love to knit, I love to write, I like to draw, I like to garden. All of these things take time. I like to cook, I like to bake. They all take time. I love doing all of them.

But sometimes, if I really want to invest in one of these pursuits, I need to decide what can give and which of those hobbies maybe I don't give up, but maybe I can put it on the back burner for a little while. For me, lately, knitting has been sort of this back-burner thing. I've been working on the same sweater for probably six months, and that's okay. I just have it in a little bag next to my bed. And when I watch a movie with Kenn on the weekend, sometimes I'll take it out and I'll knit a little bit on it. And it's so close to being done, but who knows how many more months it's going to take me?

So that's okay, I can put some of these things on the back burner, and maybe I'll have that reignited and sparked again later. But for now, it's allowing me more time to work on other cool projects that are exciting me right now.

Just giving yourself the flexibility to not feel like you have to do it all, all the time, even if it's something that you really enjoy and something that you get something out of, it, doesn't necessarily mean that it all has to be done at once. And if you really want to pursue something like sewing, or you want to pursue something like gardening or whatever it is, that is really what is driving you right now. You don't have to do all your other hobbies all at the same time. So that's just something that I've learned that maybe can help you, too.

Haley
All right, well, I have a few more tips to add to those. So the next tip is to use the four Ds before you prioritize.

Use the Four Ds

You may be thinking, Haley, what are the four Ds? The four Ds are:



  • Delete. That means just remove it from your list entirely


  • Delegate, which is to have someone else do it


  • Defer, do it later, put it on your calendar for another date

  • Do

This is kind of a common time management strategy. Sarai and I actually had to look it up where it originated from, because neither of us knew and apparently it comes from a book called The Power of Focus. Neither of us recall reading this book at any time, so we don't know if we can recommend it to you or not. But it is a really helpful tool. There's a book, Getting Things Done, that recommends something similar that I utilize all the time, which is if something comes across your desk, if it takes ten minutes or less, you do it immediately. Otherwise you delegate it or you schedule it for later. And this is really similar to that.

And I like the four Ds because it helps you to analyze if there are things that you can actually just get away with not doing.

Because that's great. Sometimes you don't need to do something. Unfortunately, the deleting of tasks is the D that I struggle with the most out of all of them.

Sarai
I think one thing that's really hard about that is by the time it surfaces on your to do list, a lot of the time you've already committed to doing it. That's why it's on there. So I think that's the hard part is not committing to so many things.

Haley
Yeah, it’s something that, well, my therapist told me, because I struggle with this all the time, he was telling me, you should tell people “let me think about that” before you commit to things. And then you can give yourself the time.

It takes the pressure off, because lots of times in the moment there's a lot of pressure, or perceived pressure at least, to say yes. And by kind of deferring the answer, at least till later, you remove a little bit of that pressure and you can get a little space to think about whether or not you actually want to do it. So you could also just defer the decision until later so then you can more comfortably delete.

Sarai
Yeah, I think that's really good advice because for me, I feel like a lot of the time it's not necessarily pressure from other people, although sometimes it is and sometimes they're not even intending to pressure you. They're just asking you a question and you interpret it as, oh, they're asking me for something. I can't say no. That's true sometimes, but other times I'm just genuinely excited about it, about this new task. And I'm like, I can do that. I can help you with that. Or, you know, that sounds fun. And I feel like maybe taking a pause there and thinking about it for a minute would be helpful for me too, because I think most of the time it's more that I'm excited to do it and want to do it than it is that I feel like there's an expectation that I'll do it.

Haley
That's what I'm telling you Sarai, those boundaries with yourself. I mean, both of us are—this is coming a lot up a lot in this episode. But yeah, the perceived pressure from others and even our self imposed. Pressure. It's a real thing. So defer the decision to do until later.

That is the fifth D that I am adding to the list of 40. So delete, delegate, defer to do later, defer to decide later, or do. It’s much improved now. So many Ds.

Collaborate

Haley

Moving on to a tip with less Ds is to strategize with your household members so that you can figure out some ways maybe you can collaborate better to get some things off of your plate or just better utilize your time. This is something that I do constantly with my husband, is just kind of having housekeeping meetings with each other about what's coming up on the schedule and being flexible with what our needs are and where we need help. And this has been something that has really helped to create clearer boundaries in my life, so I know what's going on at all times and who's responsible for what. But also it frees up some time for myself, I think.

A lot of times women carry the mental workload of keeping a household in general and coming together regularly with your partner to make sure that you're sharing that load, whatever your gender identity is, I think is really healthy to make sure that you're creating that space so you can do the creative things that you like more often.

Sarai
I think this holds true for people in your household and people outside your household too. It might be something that you need to talk about with your family, outside of your house, your friends, people at work. It comes back to boundaries again, I guess.

Make sewing dates with someone else

Haley
And my final tip is to create regular sewing dates with someone else.

Sometimes it can be hard to honor promises that you made with yourself, for yourself, but maybe if you're really struggling to do that on your own, you can have someone that you meet up with to help you stay accountable to that creative time.

So you can do this with your in real life sewing buddies. If you don't have anyone that you can do this with, you can use the Seamwork community for this. We've been doing more Zoom events lately, and they're really fun, and I've been making it a habit to pop in even if I feel like I don't have enough time. And then I always end up having so much fun that I make a little bit more time to stick around a little bit longer.

And I think that it gives you a reason to get started to stick to sewing on that specific date that you set. And plus, it's really fun, so I recommend it. If you're more of an in-person person, then you can check out your local sewing shops to see if they have any events or classes that you can attend.

And I think one of the cool benefits of the pandemic is that a lot of really great teachers have figured out how to bring their classes online so that more people, regardless of their location, can attend. So you can also look up some online workshops that you can attend as well.

Sarai
That's a very good tip. That's something that I would like to do more of, is find some in-person events, too. There's lots of cool online events, though, like you said.

Haley
When I was teaching sewing classes, I had plenty of students that, even though they had probably outgrown the need for my hand holding on various projects, they would still sign up for the classes just to have that time set aside for sewing. And if that's financially available to you, I think that it's a really good way to make time for yourself.

Recap

Sarai
All right, well, I'm going to recap real quick our tips for today. We went through a lot, we talked a lot about stuff that's going a little bit deeper, but we also shared some tips.



  • So the first tip was to identify your time thieves. And by that we mean things that take up your time unintentionally and that you don't intend to spend so much time on. Identify what those are.


  • Schedule a small block of creative time. So this would be time that you can use to do anything creative and you can make that decision in the moment how you want to use it


  • Re-examine all your outlets and decide what is enough and which of your creative outlets might go on the back burner for a while, so you don't feel like you have to do everything.


  • Tip number four that Haley shared was to use the four Ds before you prioritize what's most important. So the four Ds are delete, delegate, defer, or do. And then Haley added defer the decision to do. I think there’s three extra Ds in there, but I think that's a really good tip, too.

  • Strategize with your household members and be really clear about what your needs are with the people that are around you.


  • And number six, to create regular sewing dates with someone else or with a group of people. Whether that's online or in person, that can give you the accountability and space that you're looking for to sew.

So those are our tips for today. I think my biggest takeaway from this episode, the one that I think I'm going to put to use immediately, is that idea of deferring the decisions about things when new commitments come up. I think that might help me to free up a little bit more time and stop trying to do it all quite so often. What about you? What's your big takeaway Haley?

Haley
That's a good one. I think that's been a major takeaway in my life, the one you just mentioned, in the last couple of weeks, I've been implementing it. It's great. I think the other thing is that maybe in 2023, one of my goals will be to participate in more classes and workshops just to make some special time for myself. That sounds like that's sounding really good to me right now. So that's my takeaway.

Sarai
That's a good one, too. There are some great ones out there. I feel like especially at the beginning of the year, there tend to be a lot of new ones popping up. Really fun.

All right, well, we also have something for you if you would like to plan out your sewing. I find that a really valuable tool for giving myself the space and the time to sew, just to have everything kind of thought through and planned. And if that's something that you're interested in, we have a free Sewing Planner, which is a printable tool that helps you to design and plan out your sewing projects.

I also think this is just a really fun activity to do when you don't feel like you want to sew and you don't want to get out all your equipment. Doing a little bit of sketching, planning, dreaming is another fun way to be creative. It has a little bit of a different flavor.

So if that's something that you're interested in, you can get that free planner at
Seamwork.com/go/free-planner.

It's got pages for sketching out your looks and planning individual projects, for you to sketch those projects and add swatches. And the other cool thing is that since it's downloadable, you can print as many pages as you need, really make it customizable for you. So go ahead and check it out if you haven't already.

And if you liked this episode, we'd love it if you could leave us a review. We have a review to share with you today from J Pearl F, I think is the handle. And J Pearl F says:



“Listening to Seamwork Radio is like hanging out with the sewing friends that I wish I had in real life. I always leave with something to think about and inspires me to continue sewing. And best of all, Sarai and Haley make me laugh and I feel happy after each episode. I'm hoping that either in the spring or fall, I'll be a little less busy and be able to join Seamwork for a round of Design Your Wardrobe and create some intentional items for both myself and my little girl.”

Thank you. Oh, that is so sweet. I love that review. Thank you so much for that.

And if you have a moment and you can leave us a review on your platform of choice wherever you're listening to this right now, we would absolutely love it. You can also leave us stars. You can leave us a five star review. You don't even have to type anything to do that. We would super appreciate it. And just tell a friend if that's something else that you can do. Maybe share the podcast with other people in your life who like to sew all right.

You can also follow us on YouTube at Seamwork Video. I know I've been hyping YouTube a lot, but we are doing some really fun stuff on YouTube right now. We've got some really cool stuff planned for 2023 that's a little bit different. So if you haven't checked out our YouTube channel, definitely go and subscribe and leave a comment and let us know.

If you like what we're doing over there, you can also follow us on Instagram at Seamwork. And if you'd like to join Seamwork and become part of our private community, plus get access to hundreds of sewing patterns and dozens of sew along classes, our podcast listeners get a 50% off lifetime discount when you join at seamwork.com/go-podcast-50.

And that does it for us this week.

I'm Sarai.

Haley
And I’m Haley.

Sarai

And this is Seamwork Radio.

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