We discuss how sewing can be a form of self-care, ways to create self-care moments in your sewing practice, and how sewing plays an important role in our self-care practices!
This episode is sponsored by Arrow Mountain! Arrow Mountain is offering Love to Sew Listeners a 15% discount store-wide. Go to arrowmountain.com.au and use coupon code LOVETOSEW at checkout.
Thanks also to Buffy for supporting Love to Sew! For $20 off your Buffy comforter, visit Buffy.co and enter promo code LOVETOSEW.
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- Love to Sew episodes mentioned:
- Love to Sew Patreon Support Page
- Megan Nielsen blog post on the difference between clipping and notching!
- Patterns mentioned in this episode:
- Caroline’s favourite thing to sew: jeans!
Caroline’s Dawn Jeans
- Helen’s favourite things to sew: outerwear and tees!
Helen’s Tamarack Jacket!
- @megmadesewing self-care tips IG post!
View this post on Instagram - Resources & tools mentioned in this episode:
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Hi Helen and Caroline,
Back in the 80s when I was a stay-at-home mother living in Germany, I taught myself to sew. Eventually I was sewing almost all of my own clothing plus dress shirts for my husband and clothing for my for my sons. After 10 years of that, I moved back to the United States with my kids and went back to school, going on through graduate school, and guess what… The sewing got shuttled off to the sidelines.
But now I am a working academic, teaching primarily online for a major state university’s online degree program in cultural anthropology. That means I can mostly work from home. In the past couple of years, I’ve gotten back into the sewing in a fairly significant way. I can get up from my desk and my computer and all that computer-mediated communication, go into my sewing room, and use my brain in a completely different way. While that may not constitute “therapy” in a clinical sense, it certainly is ‘therapeutic’. It’s an incredibly refreshing and invigorating break from the sorts of things that typically preoccupy the brain of an academic. What’s more, I even signed up for a class on how to draft a bodice sloper, something I never ventured into before. In many respects, my work is about puzzling things out, but the sewing is puzzling things out in a way that brings new exercise to the little gray cells. It’s creative engineering. I sometimes casually fantasize about marrying the two with an ethnographic study of what may be something of a home sewing Renaissance. But when I think about doing that, I usually just want to sew,. Perhaps my brain is telling me not to muddled up my purely creative pursuit with too much egg headedness.
Mary, thank you so much for your message! We are happy to hear that you are back into sewing 🙂 Blending work with sewing can be tempting – it’s what led us to where we are at now with our businesses! Thank you so much for your note and for sharing your sewing story. We wish you all the best with creating your bodice sloper!
I loved this podcast! Although I never need permission to sew, this conversation gave me lots of warm feelies to validate my hobby. I was hoping for some self-care tips as to how to take care of your body while you sew. Maybe you have covered in another podcast, but I find as I get older (60 now), I have to be more careful about my ergonomics.
Maybe that would be a good topic for a future podcast? I find I need to get up every twenty minutes or so to stretch. I am mostly a quilter and I can chain piece sew for hours it seems…but when I stand up I am a wreck! I want to get back into garment sewing as it will automatically get me more mobile moving between cutting table, sewing machine and ironing board. A friend recommended this too…and it helps my posture: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000YZ5V14?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details
Now I need to figure out a more ergonomic cutting table….I just make do with dining room table and less than ideal. And good lighting! especially when darning socks. Would love to hear more ideas from the community as to how to take care of our bodies as we practice our passions.
I am so happy to have stumbled onto this podcast and have finally matched Helens voice with her face and Carolyn’s with hers. I love how thoughtful and well researched your podcast is!
Hi Mims! So glad you liked this episode. We actually have an episode all about sewing ergonomics coming up later this season (spring 2022)! We’re excited to release it!
that is brilliant, thanks! look forward to that.