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Transcript:

Caroline: We are recording today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, including Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and K’ómoks first nations.

Helen: Hello, and welcome to Love to Sew. I’m Helen, the designer behind Helen’s Closet Patterns.

Caroline: And I’m Caroline, the owner of Blackbird Fabrics.

Helen: We’re two sewing buds who love to sew our own clothes and want to encourage you on your sewing journey, too.

Caroline: Join us for today’s interview with Rose Parr.

Helen: Hello, Rose. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Rose: Hi, Helen. Well, thank you for having me. As people may have guessed, my name is Rose Parr.

Helen: Yes, and can you please let our listeners know what it is that you do and specialise in?

Rose: I specialise in ergonomics for crafters, sewers, makers, quilters, and just helping them set their areas up to stay as pain-free as possible. That’s my goal.

Helen: Yes, we are here for it. We’re so excited to learn from you today. Where are you from, Rose?

Rose: Uh, I’m in Guelph, Ontario, which is just outside of Toronto.

Caroline: Awesome. I have some family in Guelph, actually. That’s, that’s very cool. We’re fellow Canadians over here on the West Coast. So tell us a little bit about your sewing and quilting journey, and I’d love to know how and when you learned to sew.

Rose: Well, I always, during my lectures, they always introduce me, and they’ll say, sewing for 40 years, quilting for 30 years. And it just sounds good, but I’m 59. And I know I started sewing long before I was 19. So it’s probably more like sewing for 50 years, but you know, like a lot of people I learned at my mother’s knee, and it was just, sort of, osmosis. You know, you wanted to alter your Barbie dress and cut it off and change it. Then, you just went over to the sewing machine.

I’ve done a lot of sewing, a lot of dressmaking, a lot of everything. And then, um, actually went to school for home economics and studied pattern design, tailoring, colour design, all of those things. And then, um, you know, had a family, took a break from a lot of that, sewed a lot of curtains and a lot of kids’ clothes. And then as my kids got older, I got more into quilting, and I do a little bit of clothing making now, but it’s mostly quilting.

Helen: Wonderful. And how does ergonomics fit into that? What got you interested in studying and then teaching ergonomics?

Rose: Well, when my kids went back to school, and I had four young kids, but when they started school, I wanted to work somewhere that was very flexible. And so I became certified as a personal trainer. I’m also a registered holistic nutritionist and a few other things. And my business was from my home. It was in my basement. They all, they enter through the garage. And so I could see people, um, when kids were at school, and it was great.

And during that time, I did a little bit of, uh, corporate work for an employee wellness company. And they, of course, would have ergonomic protocols given to them by, um, the ergonomists in the corporate world, and so I learned a lot through that. And then I took a certification for office ergonomics, which translates beautifully to the craft room. It really does.

And, uh, so I’m not an ergonomist. I am certified in ergonomics, and, you know, there’s a big difference. So, yeah, and even when I was still personal training, I was, I was teaching my clients then who sewed or who were at their office or whatever, um, the best ways for them to set up. It just, it just comes very natural to me. My dad was a machinist, and we were just always doing things the smart way, I guess.

Helen: Oh, that’s awesome. And I love that you’re sharing all of this knowledge now with the broader sewing community online. When did that start for you?

Rose: Well, it was, I was actually one of my, so in, I think 2017, I decided that I didn’t want to be a 90 year old personal trainer, and so I was looking for the next chapter. And at that time, I had been taking my quilts out to be long armed by, um, a lovely long armer. And so I thought, hey, I’ll get a long arm. And so I bought a long arm and for, um, a year, actually my, my personal training clients were basically paying for my long arm cause it was in the same studio.

And even then some of the ones that were, sort of, they were personal training clients, and they were quilters, and I’d be talking to them about things, and one of them said, you know, you should really talk to the Guild about this. You should, you know, put together a PowerPoint and talk to the Guild, and I did. And then I talked to, um, a couple of other, you know, fairly local guilds and that went really well. And then in, uh, 2019, I think it was, I spoke at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. And since then, I mean, once you’ve spoken there, then, you know, that’s a real, um, high point in my career.

And then, of course, once everything shut down, it, it actually really opened things up for me because people don’t normally, um, I speak primarily to quilt guilds, and they don’t normally pay mileage for places that are, you know, six, seven hours away because you’re only doing a lecture. If you’re not doing a workshop, then they usually, you know, it doesn’t work that way. And so I didn’t do a lot of lectures far away. Let’s put it that way.

And so of course, with Zoom, um, I’ve lectured in Scotland and England, all over the United States. I cannot believe how many quilt guilds there are in California actually. It blows my mind. And so, yeah, so that’s, so I’ve gone from speaking, you know, once every couple of months to speaking two or three times a week, um, it’s been a little crazy.

Helen: Wow. And we found you actually via your book that’s all about sewing ergonomics, so we’ll put that in our show notes so our listeners can take a look at that, too. Did you write that book in the last few years as well?

Rose: Uh, yeah, actually that was, um, two, it came out in 2021, so I guess it was 2019, actually, that I was writing, and a lot of that just came from my PowerPoint. It was like all the information was there, so it was just a matter of really fleshing that out and, you know, doing a little bit more research. Everything in my lectures, everything in my book is very research-based. None of it is based just on, you know, what worked for me and isn’t that great? It’s based on research that’s been done in the field of ergonomics and then applied to the crafting world

Caroline: Awesome. And your book is called Sew Healthy and Happy. Um, so, yeah, we’ll make sure we link that up in the show notes, but we want to talk to you about how our listeners can set up their space for better ergonomics. But before we get into, kind of, the nitty gritty, we wanted to spend a bit of time on the basics and just ask you what is ergonomics?

Rose: You know, there’s, there’s a lot of different definitions because people use it as a noun and a verb and lots of different things, but really it’s just doing something comfortably and efficiently. That’s, that’s all it is.

Caroline: What are some common difficulties that sewists can face because of the way that they sew?

Rose: Well, it depends which area of the process that you’re referring to because there’s different ways that we can improve, whether it’s, um, you know, at the ironing board, at the cutting table, uh, whether you’re trying to cut a pattern on the floor, which I know we’ve all done, um, years ago or at the sewing table. So there’s, there’s room for improvement at different stages.

Helen: That makes a lot of sense. So should we start by talking about how to set up a sewing space? In your book, you suggest setting up a work triangle. Can we talk about that for a moment? What is that?

Rose: So a work triangle, right now, almost everyone has a work triangle in their home already, and that is their refrigerator, um, their sink, and their stove. That’s a, that’s a work triangle. And, and that actually was designed by, um, a very famous mother of twins, and I’m a mother of twins, and her name was Lillian Gilbreth, and she was the Cheaper by the Dozen mum

And the work triangle that she designed for one of the state fairs in, uh, 1928, I believe, is really still the same one that’s used today. And they have parameters for overall size, the minimum and maximum for the size, for the corners, like, when, when it’s being designed for a home kitchen or industrial setting, it’s very, set up to be very efficient. And my, you know, most kitchens are just naturally set that way because they’re not huge, and so you don’t have a lot of choice.

In our sewing studio, I think of the ironing board, the sewing table, and the cutting table, uh, as being our work triangle. My big difference is that I really want people’s sewing work triangle to be as inefficient as possible. And, uh, I always joke that, you know, I’m so efficient when I had my third child, I had twins because I wasn’t doing this again, and I can do two for one. And so I’m all about efficiency. I’m all about doing two things at once except when it comes to this particular, um, aspect.

And that’s really because every time that you stand up from your sewing machine and walk, whether it’s six inches or 60 feet to your ironing board, your blood is pumping. Everything is circulating. And, you know, a lot of the things that I talk about and the suggestions, they really all boiled down to that, to not disrupting blood flow or circulation.

And so, for me, if your sewing triangle, basically, you want to have your ironing board as far away from your sewing machine as you can. The, the cutting table doesn’t usually apply. You know, it’s not as important because you’re not going back and forth to it as much.

With sewing, it’s a little bit different because with sewing garments, you spend more time, you know, whether you, whether you, um, are basting and setting a sleeve in or something that there’s a lot more time spent, um, in detail work.

But with quilters, they go from the sewing machine to the ironing board constantly, and they’ll press one seam before they sew the next seam. And, um, so yeah, so the farther away your ironing board can be from you, the more circulation you will have.

Helen: Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, caveat for all of this conversation today for our listeners, you have to do what works for you. This is just some general advice that we wanted to give. And I also want to ask you about lighting rows, because this is a big issue for a lot of people. What should our goal be as far as lighting when we’re sewing?

Rose: Well, the thing is, if it’s for your overall, um, sewing space or sewing room, then brighter is better. And so, uh, a few things that you can do is even just remove the shades or the actual cover from your, from your light in your room can make a big difference.

Uh, I recently found out about these light bulbs that they’re made for garages, but you plug them into a regular light socket, and then they almost look like a flower pedal and, and protrusions come out into a fan-like surface, and they all light up, so they really spread the light around a room. And I keep meaning to go get one and add it to my, uh, ergonomic toolbox lecture, but I haven’t, I haven’t yet.

Uh, but the main thing is, is that wherever you’re doing work where you need the most light, whether it’s at the sewing table, the ironing board or the cutting table, you really need to have some task lighting there. And just depending on how big your space is, is going to determine how many different lights you have set up really.

Caroline: This might be an obvious question, but why do, why is it important to have that light? Is that, is it so that we’re not bending and, kind of, going closer to the project or is it actually for our eyes?

Rose: Um, both. It’s, it’s, it’s for both. I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s, whether you’re sewing or whether you’re cutting wood or whatever you’re doing, you know, you always want to try to bring your work to you, and so good lighting helps with that so you’re not having to bend in to get a closer look at it.

Um, the other thing is I’m a big fan of, um, just dollar store readers. I’ve got them everywhere, and they’re usually, you know, on top of my head or tucked in my shirt. And, you know, so much of what we do is just a habit. So if you have the readers and you can just get into the habit of every time you’re threading the needle on your machine, instead of coming in, you drop your readers down, then you won’t need to lean in so much to see things. They really help a lot.

But, and again, it, it, a lot of times people like to do their handiwork, um, in the evening when they’re watching TV, mostly because, um, someone in the house is complaining that they’re always in the sewing room, and they’re never watching TV with them, so we find something to do to watch TV.

But you have to remember that that table lamp beside you, um, was designed for ambient lighting. It was not designed to do close-up work of any kind. And so you need to have a, um, a floor lamp or something coming down over your shoulder as well. Um, when you’re doing that kind of work. So, I mean, brighter is better.

Caroline: Yeah, of course. And you’ve also recommended the use of an anti-fatigue mat. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what you look for in this kind of a tool?

Rose: Yes. Now I normally don’t get into too much detail on this, in any of my lectures, because there was a lot of different, um, specs that you can examine. And so there’s an older blog post at HealthyQuilting.com that if you scroll back a little bit, everything is, is there depending on whether you want to talk about the material, th-, the size, the height, what, what you’re looking for in that because there’s, there’s lots to choose from. They’ve come a long way.

Like, now you can even get decent ones from the big box stores where that wasn’t the case in, before. I mean, the big one that I used to have at my long arm was from Uline, which is a industrial supply place. And it was, you know, really heavy, um, really great quality, but I’ve since switched that in for another one that is a Canadian company, and they are called Vigorous and it’s, it’s, they’re a totally different concept. They’re weird to look at, you’re going to look at it and go, well, why would I want to stand on that? But they’re heaven.

Uh, but basically you just want to make sure that what you’re using is thick enough that, um, it doesn’t just compress as soon as you stand on it and never come back. Um, the material has to have that resiliency to come back again, but you don’t want it so thick that you’re wobbling on it. And, and so, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of different things to look at with that. And, um, there’s all those specs are at HealthyQuilting.com.

Helen: Perfect. Yeah, I got my anti-fatigue mats at Costco, I think. They’re just designed for kitchen use, and they work great.

Rose: You know, I mean, the thing is with the, the more, I guess we call them household ones, I mean, they don’t last as long. And so whether it’s your anti-fatigue mat, depending on how often you’re standing on it and compressing it, or whether it’s your, your running shoes. I mean, uh, I’m a big fan of indoor shoes and, you know, I get into arguments with people about this all the time and that’s, we can do that another day, but I, I always have indoor shoes on.

And so if you’re wearing a pair of indoor shoes, you know, they’re clean, and they will look brand new forever, but they actually may be really worn out. They might not be doing any good for you anymore. And so you need to check if the, the cushioning on the, um, the heel, um, is, is wearing down. If the insole, even if you’re wearing orthotics on top of them, if that is wearing down, and they’re, they’re really worth the investment. I mean, I cannot believe how much I spend for running shoes that really do not look great at all, um, but they’re worth it.

And, I mean, if you’re shopping for them, I really recommend that you go to a running store. Even though you’re not running, go to a running store. Take your old running shoes with you. Uh, whether you take your indoor ones and maybe take your outdoor ones, too, because the outdoor ones, your gait and wear pattern might be a little bit more obvious on them because they’re dirtier, but then have them find something for you. It’s probably going to be a cross trainer, but who knows.

You know, I talk a lot about machine maintenance when it comes to, uh, healthy quilting with us being that, that machine. We are the most important piece of machinery in our sewing room. No warranty, no guarantee. You know, replacement parts are really hard to get. And so if we think about, you know, buying this pair of expensive running shoes, because they will be expensive compared to, you know, buying a new foot for your sewing machine that, you know, I, I bought feet for my long arm that were $80 that I don’t even use, you know? Um, and so if you just think about, you’re maintaining the piece of machinery that is literally irreplaceable, then I think it, uh, it makes it a little bit easier sometimes to spend that money on ourselves.

Caroline: Yeah. And it’s something you’ll be potentially wearing every day, right? So you’ll get a lot of wears per cost.

Rose: Yeah, and I mean, I’m saying running shoes, but I mean, something similar to a Birkenstock is great, too. They don’t have to be a running shoe. Um, just something that provides a lot of support.

Caroline: So would you say a comfortable, supportive shoe is a good alternative to an anti-fatigue mat? Or would you use them both? Would you recommend using both?

Rose: I mean, I use them both. My sewing studio has a hardwood floor. It’s not carpeted. And even with carpeting, sometimes, again, it depends on how old it is, how old is the underpad on it? You know, it’s could be flattened to something by now. If you, for whatever reason don’t want to have an anti-fatigue mat, then yes. They’re great. But the thing with, so if you’re wearing running shoes all the time, then your body is acclimated to that. And that’s what is natural and normal for you just in day-to-day life. So now if you add to that standing in one position for a long time, then that’s additional. So the anti-fatigue mat gives you that additional help.

Caroline: Okay. Okay. Let’s move on to cutting because yeah, I think this is usually, personally, what makes my body hurt the most. So, um, how do you figure out what the right table height is for your body?

Rose: Caroline, so, um, are you primarily using scissors or a rotary cutter?

Caroline: I do a bit of both, but rotary cutter would be primary for me.

Rose: So the, the thing that we need to start with with that, and it applies to all the different areas that we can talk about in this sewing studio is everything starts with your baseline ergonomic angle magic number. And it’s a little bit different for each of us, but that’s, we need to determine that first, before we look at anything further and, you know, people refer to it all the time as the 90 degree ergonomic angle.

And that’s not always the case, that’s a starting point, but the way that you can determine that is to, you know, stand up nice and tall, roll your shoulders back, have the top half of your arm close to your body. Bring the bottom half of your arm up at a right angle at the elbow. And then just reach out like you’re going to shake someone’s hand, but you’re going to shake someone’s hand that is the exact same height as you. They have the same torso length and everything.

And so if you can face a mirror, it’s great. You can put a little whipped cream on the end of your finger and face a mirror. And then what you’re going to do when your hand is out there is you’re going to turn, rotate your palm towards the floor. And so what you want to do is you want to measure from your palm facing the floor to the floor and, uh, there’s different ways. I mean, I have a, I have a, um, a tape measure pinned to a wall in my studio because I used it for a video, but most people don’t have that. You know, you can just drop a tape measure in your hand, how-, however it’s going to work.

But so for me, I am five foot three in my shoes. I’m in my indoor shoes. And so from my turned over palm, the bottom of my palm, whatever, to the floor is 39 inches. So I know that’s going to be the starting point. And so, you know, if anybody’s listening to this, and they’re taking notes, then just remember that you’re going to shake somebody’s hand, turn your palm towards the floor, and measure from your palm to the floor. Yeah, for me, it’s 39 inches, but that doesn’t mean that somebody else that’s five three is also going to be 39 inches.

Then, from that, if we’re starting with the cutting table, you know what, can we start with the ironing board first?

Helen: Sure.

Caroline: Oh, sure. Yeah.

Rose: Okay. Just cause it’s, cause it, sort of, sets the stage and makes it easier to understand for the cutting table. So if we’re looking at the ironing board, same thing applies. We’re going to start with that magic angle, that magic number. And then what we want to do at the ironing board is we want to deduct the width of our iron. And so the height of your iron is when it’s standing upright unless it’s an Oliso, but most are standing up upright. That’s your height. When it’s lying flat, you want to measure from the sole plate to the handle, and so we’re going to say that mine is six inches. The one that I used in my initial calculations in the book and everything was, was quite a big one.

And so I know that 39 minus six, so your ergonomic angle minus the depth of your iron, 39 minus 6, 33 inches, for me, is going to be that, you know, perfect pressing height for my ironing board. And again, that’s going to be a starting point, and we want to look at, so your ironing board has a limited number of adjustments.

So, if I’m looking at my ironing board and I’m thinking, I can go 32 and a half or I can go 33 and a half, I’m going to go 32 and a half every time. Because what we want to avoid with the ironing board is we want to avoid having our ironing board too high because when your hand has to come up, even at the slightest angle up over top of your iron to, to guide it, to hang on to it, then first of all, you have a bend in your wrist, which is, you know, never great.

Uh, you also sometimes will have the handle of your iron now, basically, your hand is resting on top of it because it’s come up over top. Um, it’s not that it’s digging into it, but it is against it. But the other thing that happens is that when we raise our hand or raise our arm, our shoulder follows, and that’s what it’s designed to do. If we’re getting something off the top shelf, the shoulder helps us. We bring everything down, and then the shoulders are down again. And when our shoulders are down, generally, everything above them is much happier.

And so when you’re pressing at an ironing board that’s too high, basically, one of your shoulders is just a little bit hitched up all the time. And it’s such a slight movement that somebody standing beside you might not even see it, but it is there. And at the end of the day, when you’ve got a headache, when your neck is tight, when there’s a lot of tension, when your shoulders are sore and tight, and you’re thinking I didn’t do anything different, um, it could be that one of your shoulders was creeping up all the time.

And so say, if I’m going to then, I’m going to look at that 32 and a half. The next thing is quilters tend to use, uh, wool pressing mats a lot, and that can add, you know, half an inch as well. Garment sewers, not as much, I don’t believe. And so, for me, anyways, even though my own calculation says that my height should be at 33, mine is set at 32. And so as long as it’s, you want it low enough that your shoulders stay down, but not so low that you have to bend over to see what you’re doing.

Helen: That makes a lot of sense. And I’m wondering if this is why my neck and shoulders often hurt after a long sewing session. It’s probably because of this angle.

Rose: Well, and honestly, even if somebody was standing right beside you, they wouldn’t be able to see that it was up. It’s that slight of a thing. But imagine it’s that way all day. If we’re lucky to be sewing all day, it’s that way all day. And so if you think about that same scenario in terms of your cutting table. Um, now you’re going to start with that same, for me, 39 inches. And then with this, it’s a little bit trickier because when you’re using scissors, um, you can use scissors much closer to a 90 degree angle than a rotary cutter. But if you’re going back and forth, you really have to set up for the rotary cutter because you can do your scissors a little bit lower. Um, but you can’t do your rotary cutter higher.

And so, um, let’s, we’ll say right now that we’re going to set this up for rotary cutting. And what you need to do with this is, so you’re going to approach your table. You’re going to stand up nice and tall. Bring your arm out at that 90 degrees. Have your rotary cutter in your hand with the blade, um, not exposed and then drop your elbow, keeping your arm, your forearm, from your fingertips to your elbow, you know, neutral, straight, and then because a rotary cutter requires pressure and we need a little bit of, um, gravity to help with that pressure.

And so as we’re coming down, what feels good that you can apply enough pressure without having to bend over. That’s the whole thing. You want to avoid bending over. And so again, you’re going to determine, determine that measurement. And for me, it’s only about four inches. I have, I have, I’m short waisted. I have short arms. And so for me, it’s about 4 inches.

Now, a way that you can play around with that and audition different heights is, you know, just stack some board games, puzzles, books, aren’t as great because they’re, they’re not as big, and so it’s nice to be able to mimic the motion of going across. So it’s nicer to have a larger surface, so board games, puzzles. And then when you get closer to the right height, start adding magazines or something that is, um, you know, smaller, so you can really customise it and then determine what that drop is.

So if mine is four inches, then I know that 39 minus four, my cutting table height for rotary cutting would be 35 inches. Um, it could be a little bit higher for scissors because you don’t need the downward pressure so much. So if it’s, if it’s 35, then what I need to do next is I need to raise my existing table to that height and how you raise it will depend on the table that you’re using. And so, if my, and I will tell you, there is no average height for any table, any desk, they’re all over the place, but let’s say that my table is 30 inches, and I need to raise it five inches.

One of the quickest and easiest ways is to use what, we’ve always called them bed risers, but I mean, they’re table risers now is to pick up a set of table risers. And the thing to watch with this is that first of all, you know, a lot of people didn’t even know they came in different sizes. And so you go and you buy a set and you come back and your back is still sore. And you’re like, yey, you know, um, but they do come in different sizes.

The tricky thing is the person who made the label for the packaging for that riser might not even ever have it in front of them. They might’ve just been sent the, sent the specs and sent a picture. And so they may put on the label that it’s a four-inch cable riser, but they’re not accommodating for the cavity that the leg sits in. And so you might only be gaining three and a half inches of height and not four inches. And so, you know, keep your receipt and be able to try that out.

Uh, I was actually recently shopping online for a new set for a desk, and they are getting much better at that. Um, they, a lot of the, um, online spec sheets are saying, you know, raises three and a half, not that it’s four inches high, um, or, or whatever. And so I know that if I wanna raise it five inches, then I’m going to get, you know, it, it could be a, um, a six inch set of bed risers, but it only raises five inches or whatever.

Helen: Right.

Rose: Um, and so they, they worked the best for wooden table legs because wooden table legs are bigger in circumference. And the thing is, is that if you use them on a, uh, say a folding table where the diameter of that, the leg is, is round and much, much smaller, you just risk them jumping out when you move the table. And quite often you would say, oh, well, I never move my table. And if you absolutely never ever move your table, okay, fine.

But we do, we want to get around to that other side for whatever reason, and we pull it out. And it’s just really easy when you pull on the one end, that they, they just, they jump out and then, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got chipped rulers and chipped scissors and chipped blades because they’re on the floor.

Um, and another way that, that people often raise their folding tables or anything with that, you know, round smaller, um, leg is they use it’s PVC piping, plastic piping, um, and then, you cut it into four equal lengths, and then, you slide it onto the bottom of the table leg. But the thing to remember here is that you have to accommodate for the part of a table leg that goes to the first bend or, or knuckle in that leg.

And so if you’re looking at a table and it’s 30 inches high, but it’s, say it’s three inches from the floor to that first little bend or knuckle, then you’re not going to cut or buy a set of these that are five inches. You’re going to cut them eight inches to include that three inches.

And I, and I did again, when I was looking for a set recently of just regular risers, I noticed that they are now selling these online. I never saw those before. Everybody I know just made their own. And I’m a lot of, a lot of guilds and a lot of groups that do sew days. They have a, they have a set in their retreat bag that comes with them because they know that they’re always sewing at the same, you know, Legion or hall or whatever it is and using the folding tables.

Uh, you can use wheels, but you know, again, wheels, by the time you’re buying a five inch wheel, you might as well have gone to Goodwill and bought a new table. I mean, they’re, they can get really expensive for the good ones. And you need a good one because you need one that locks. That, that’s it.

If you’re looking at, you know, screwing on little furniture legs to the bottom of up, say a wooden table. If they are only five inches high, then they were designed for a, an ottoman, a footstool, and so they weren’t designed to hold the weight of, you know, your big old desk or dining room table. And so a lot of them are spindly almost, and they look great.

And again, if you never move that table, then it’s going to be okay. But if you start shifting that table around, then you could damage the integrity of that, and at some point, there’s a crack or whatever. Uh, so there’s, there’s lots of different ways to, to do that.

Caroline: Okay. Those were all amazing tips, so thank you for that. Um, and you mentioned we should try to avoid bending. So do you have any other tips for how our bodies should be positioned at the cutting table when we’re doing the cutting?

Rose: Ideally, you’d be standing facing it with your fabric and your rotary cutter and your ruler in front of you. There, there are times I’ve done this myself. Believe me, I’m not perfect. I’ve done this myself where I’ve just been in a hurry and you’re, kind of, at the edge of the table, and so you’re going, you know, on the side to it or whatever that is, that’s not ideal. Um, you, you really don’t get the best positioning that way. So yeah, if you can be directly in front of it and you’re, you’re approaching it head on.

Um, the other thing to keep in mind is that, this is talking about rulers, is try to tent your fingers on the ruler. Um, if you think of yoga toes where you’re displacing the pressure around, um, on, on your toes, rather than your foot bed, the same thing when you’re holding your ruler. If you can hold it down with your finger pads, rather than placing your hand flat cause when you place your hand flat and put all your weight on there, um, it really disrupts the blood flow and circulation from the back of your hand, and it actually hurts as well.

And so if you can, if you can try to do it that way, um, and then, you know, you got to make sure that you have grips on the bottom of your rulers, or there’s rulers now that have a coating on them. Um, I haven’t purchased one, but people that I talk to, um, say they work really well.

Helen: Yeah. I recently got a Creative Grids ruler that has that, sort of, like, rough texture on the back, and it’s awesome. I absolutely love it. It’s my new favourite thing cause it doesn’t slide around as much.

Rose: Good to know. It’ll be interesting to know if that, um, if it wears down at all or if it stays there.

Helen: I’ll keep you posted.

Rose: Well, no, because, and that’s the thing, like, so many of the things that we do in any areas of our life, they’re perfect when we set it up. Those running shoes we first got were perfect, you know? That chair that we got was perfect. That ergonomic mat was perfect. But over time, things wear out and they wear down and they compress, you know? And so we have to reevaluate, um, over time because, you know, it was, it was great two years ago when I first set it up. And so sometimes you just need to double check that it’s still where it should be.

Helen: Yeah. Are there any other tools, you mentioned those sticky back rulers, anything else that could give people a, kind of, leg up when it comes to cutting, um, and setting up their cutting space?

Rose: Uh, well, there are, there’s lots of things on the market and, you know, I’m, I’m easy to buy Christmas gifts for. My kids just buy me whatever newest thing is on the market. And, um, a few years ago they got me one of the rulers with the blades attached, and, um, they, they work really well. And the nice thing for them is that if you do have any wrist issues at all, you’re not gripping a rotary cutter.

It does not need to be quite as low and your hand, kind of, glides across. You still need to apply pressure. That’s the thing. And so you need to make sure that you are, um, keeping your elbow to wrist as straight as possible because you are applying pressure. Um, they, they work, they work well. Personally, I just find lifting them up to move around all the time, I find them bulky. And so I will use mine once in a while. I don’t use it all the time.

Uh, I’m a big, big fan of AccuQuilt, and they are expensive for sure. I bought mine used on Kijiji, and I bought it, uh, five hours away from home near where one of my siblings lived, and they picked it up for me. That’s how badly I wanted it. And, um, so you can get them used. And they, they have really kept a lot of people quilting. I mean, the AccuQuilt sn’t obviously going to be great for garment making, but they’ve kept a lot of people quilting for longer than they ever would have in the past.

There are several rotary cutters on the market that market themselves as ergonomic. And some of them just have a better grip. Um, some of them have a different weight. The one that is truly ergonomic is the Martelli, and they have one for left-handed and right-handed. And the Martelli cutters, you can use a little bit higher because, as well, they glide, and you don’t need the same amount of gravity because you’re going straighter across then down at that angle. There’s a learning curve with them. They do take a little bit of time to get used to, but they’re handy.

Helen: Very cool.

Caroline: That’s a great tip. I’m actually, with my fabric store, we have a lot of cutters every day and, and we’re always looking for new rotary cutters that are more ergonomic, and I’d never heard of Martelli, so that is an awesome lead.

Rose: They do take a, they do take a little bit of getting used to. They, they really do. Um, I know there’s a, there’s a fabric store here in town, and they only sell Boutiques and you know, that, you know, Boutiques can be, uh, fairly heavy and they only use the, the ruler with the blade attached. I mean, it’s probably a fairly industrial one, I don’t know, but that’s all they use, and it works well for them.

Caroline: Very cool. Very cool.

Helen: What about for sewists who need, or want to sit down while they’re pressing or cutting? Do you have any advice for setting up a sitting pressing or cutting station?

Rose: So, so pressing by all means, I mean, I sit down to press all the time, and there’s two options. You can either get a bar stool that works with the existing height that your ironing board is at, or you can drop your ironing board. Dropping your ironing board, it just gets tricky, uh, because, quite often, to get it low enough to have it be the most ergonomic it’s crashing through your thighs, and it just won’t go any lower. Um, so, so that one can be a little bit tricky there.

Um, as far as cutting, it’s very difficult, um, to cut well from a seated position. And certainly not for, if you’re cutting with the fabric, if you were, I mean, and if you’re using scissors, um, it’s far easier. You can certainly do that. You really have to make sure in that case that the table is lower because our whole goal when we have tables beside us, is to have them, um, ergonomically where our hands are coming to them at a 90 degree angle, whether it’s a keyboard, whether it’s picking up your knife and fork, whether it’s coming out to your machine’s bed, um, or harp, or, you know, throat plate that you want that all coming straight in at 90 degrees or a little bit more, depending on your body’s makeup. And so, if you’re going to, for whatever reason, need to cut while you’re seated, then you’re going to want that table lower than it normally would be.

Helen: That makes sense. Keep in mind that angle, no matter what height you were at. Okay. Well, speaking of sitting down, we spend a lot of time seated at our sewing machines. So what about chairs? Do you have advice for us about choosing a chair?

Rose: So in the, like I had said at the beginning, a lot of the points that I use are based on different research and, um, chair research actually comes from the, oh, I don’t know the fifties or the sixties when they had, you know, the typing pools and the secretarial pools, and, you know, you saw a hundred people typing at once. And from that, they actually designed the stenographer’s chair.

And the stenographer’s chair has a waterfall front. So the seat pan or the seat depth, it’s shorter. And then it drops off, and it rounds down. And the reason for that is that you don’t want the front of your chair right up against the back of your knees. And so you want to have a, you know, a two finger gap or whatever it is, just enough there so they’re not touching.

And, I mean, you know, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t sit down to start sewing and get some big elastic bands and wrap them around your knees and then start sewing. And so you wouldn’t want that pressure there. And so when you remove the pressure from the back of your knees, then your body doesn’t have to work as hard to, to pump things from, from the heart through, through your system.

That’s one thing, no matter what chair you have, um, that’s really important. And if you can’t adjust the seat pan, because normally you can’t, unless it’s, unless it’s a really expensive executive chair, and they’re normally really big, but you know, you can put a cushion behind you, um, to, to bring you forward a little bit. Some people like to use their lumbar cushion in their sewing chairs. So if that’s behind you, that would bring you forward.

Uh, we, I mean, you know, we all know wheels are great. I mean, yes, they, they get full of threads and, and we deal with that, but they really are nice. But depending on the surface, I mean, if you’re on a hardwood floor, then maybe you don’t need wheels to slide your chair back and forth every time you get up. Um, hydraulics on a chair are great because you know, when you’re trying to get the most ergonomic position for sewing, you either need to bring your machine down or bring your bum up, one or the other. And so when you have the hydraulics, you can raise your chair. You might still need another cushion. Um, but you can, you can bring that up.

When we, um, like I talked before about having the table at right angles, regardless of what work you’re doing. If you are setting your sewing machine on top of your existing desk, you’re existing, um, dining room table, that desk was made so that your chair is designed so that your arms can come out at a 90 degree angle to your keyboard.

The dining room table was designed, if you’re using the chairs it came with, and if you’re an average height person, so that when you sit in that chair, your arms will come out at 90 degrees to the tabletop to grab your knife and fork. So even if you’re the perfect height, and it works great when you’re eating dinner, when you put your sewing machine on top, you’ve now added three or four inches. And so you have to crawl up over top of it. And so every time your hand’s coming up, you’ve got the bend in your wrist. You’ve got the part of the machine, whether you have an extended table on it or not where the underside of your wrist is, is resting on there.

Your forearm, quite often, is resting on the table itself. Um, so you’ve got a lot of, uh, points of contact there. You’ve got a lot, a lot of elastic bands that you’ve wrapped around different parts of your body, and nothing’s going to go numb. Nothing’s going to fall asleep, and it’s not necessarily, your wrist might hurt a bit, but normally it doesn’t even, even hurt. But what it does is it just all adds up. You were cutting, you were pressing, you were doing this, you were doing something else in another part of your life.

And, you know, if you picture the garden hose where it’s got that little kink in it or that, that, that little bit that’s disrupting the flow. The water is still coming out, but everything’s having to work so much harder to do it. Um, and so it’s not good for the part of the body that’s not receiving, um, nice, fresh circulation and blood flow all the time. But also if your body has to work harder to do it, you just get tired faster, simple as that, you know? And so, I mean, I shouldn’t recommend that you sew til 3:00 AM, but, uh, if you want to stay awake, then, uh, make sure your blood flows, but, yeah, you need to raise your chair up so that you can get in that position.

And so whether you have hydraulics on an office chair, if you’re doing it at the dining room table, chances are you’re using, um, the dining room chair. And so you want to make sure that you have a cushion, um, that you can put on that chair that you use the same one every time. It’s your go to cushion. And if the chair is square, then get a square cushion. It’s not something you where you want to walk into the next room and grab a throw pillow off the couch and put it down there, you know?

Our body likes to be level and even our hips like to be level and even, and so have something that, you know, covers your whole bum so that everything is sitting on there. And then if you want to add to that, some of the seat toppers or something else that you like, then be sure that you are keeping that in mind when you’re, when you’re picking the size of the cushion.

And I mean, we’re sewists. You can, you can buy some foam cushion. You can put a nice cover on it. And then the key is to keep it with your sewing machine. So every single time you pull that up on the table, the cushion is just part of it. Because if you don’t, then you’re not going to bother. You’re going to be like, oh yeah, I know I heard I should get a cushion, but this has been fine. I’m, I’m just gonna, cause you want to get sewing. It’s as simple as that, you know, we’re a little obsessive and we want to get on it. And so I always say that the biggest lie that a quilter or a sewer, or I don’t know, an embroiderer, a knitter, whatever it is, the biggest lie we ever tell is, I’m just going to do a little bit. Right?

Nobody does a little bit. Nobody sits down to sew for five minutes, you know, and even if you say it’s going to be 30 minutes, you can have all the timers in the world you want. You set the timer, you get up, and you do something. You’re going back. And so you might as well, you know, just, just admit to yourself that you’re going to be there for the next 12 hours and set up the right way.

Caroline: Yeah. It’s, it’s funny. And I love your, sort of, way of looking at things because it’s true. Like, as, sewists, we just want to jump in and get sewing. It’s really hard to, uh, not do that. But when you talk about setting yourself up so that your body doesn’t get tired as quickly, and you can sew for a little bit longer, I think in the end, taking that time to, like, front load that, that work to get yourself set up properly in the end is going to pay off for all you sewists out there who are maybe wondering if this is worth it. I think it is because it’s going to let you sew for longer in the end.

Rose: Well, and not even just longer four hours or minutes that day, but longer for years. You know, my mom had to, had to quit. That’s another reason why I was so happy to start speaking to guilds about this because you know, uh, my mom quit doing all of her handiwork that she loved: knitting, crocheting, quilting, sewing. Um, she was probably about 70, which, you know, seemed normal at the time. Um, a lot of arthritis, a lot of different things going on. But she probably didn’t have to, but we, kind of, all thought at the time, well, she’s 70, and everything like that.

And when I speak to guilds now, I mean, I’m, I’m seeing, you know, lots of, uh, much older sewists and quilters and embroiderers and knitters that, that are, that are still doing things. And, um, you know, we don’t have the best genetics in my family, frankly. You know, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of replacement parts and a lot of, um, arthritis and, and different things happening. And, uh, so I’m very proactive in, in that field because, you know, I want to be, you know, when I can finally afford to tour Europe, I want to be able to walk every place I’m going.

Helen: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, and this is a cheesy segue, but speaking of walking and feet, we wanted to also ask you about the foot pedal because I find that it really gets away from me sometimes. And before I know it, I’ve got my leg all the way stretched out and I’m trying to, like, feel for that foot pedal.

Rose: And you’re still sewing!

Helen: And I’m still sewing.

Rose: You don’t stop sewing.

Helen: Yeah, of course not. So where should it be?

Rose: I’ve had it where it was actually flipped upside down, and I didn’t care. I just kept sewing.

Helen: Oh my gosh. I haven’t quite got that far yet.

Rose: The, or you have, and you just didn’t notice it. Um, yeah. So I mean, anything that you could have in place for that to have the grip underneath, and there’s lots of fun things on-, online. There’s, there’s one on my website, but it’s not mine. And it says right there that it’s not mine. I copied it from someplace and gave them credit.

But really all I do is I have the, um, you know, the stuff that you buy to put in your cupboards that is, like, a sheet of grippy stuff. You know, you get at the hardware store. Um, I just have a piece of that underneath mine. And then I had a, with two-sided tape, I had another piece stuck right to my foot, and then I had a piece on the floor, and that works fairly well.

Uh, for some people, I mean, we’ve talked about raising their sewing machines. Some people want to raise their sewing machine, so that they’re all in line at the machine. Uh, now all of a sudden their feet are dangling in midair, and so they need to get something under their feet. Um, usually it doesn’t have to be very high at all because you still want your knees at about that 90 degree angle or whatever’s comfortable for you. And you know, when it comes to the ergonomic knee angle, often it can be 95, a hundred. It can even go up to 110, depending on your body.

I mean, you know, everything that we’re talking about there, there’s no cookie cutter mould here. It’s all about trying to make things as customised for you as possible. And so, again, something you had mentioned earlier, there’s something that I might say that, you know, works for 90% of the population. If it’s not working for you, then you’re the 10% it doesn’t work for. And so, you know, either email me and ask me about it, or maybe what you’ve been doing all along is great. Um, it’s just to figure that out.

So if you have raised your seat so that you’re sewing at a 90 degree angle. You might find now that your feet are dangling in midair. And so you want to put something underneath them and something fairly small, so you can still keep, um, the best angle for your knees in the chair. And it needs to be wide enough for both feet. Our hips like to be even and level, and then everything is, is happier. And so you’re going to have it wide enough for both feet, and it’ll keep the hips happy, but it does a few other things as well.

It will give you the opportunity, which, I mean, hopefully you’re already doing it now when it’s on the floor, but you want to be sure you have the opportunity to sew a little bit with your non-dominant foot as well. You know, we sit down and we always, I’m right-handed, I always, you know, use my, my foot pedal with, with my right foot. And, and the majority of people find that they do do that.

You know, we talk about, a lot about circulation and you know, all the terrible things we’re doing while we’re sewing. Well, the great thing that we’re doing while we’re sewing is we are pumping that foot pedal. And pumping your feet is really good for blood flow. Uh, but your other foot, it’s just dead weight. It’s just sitting there. It’s not getting any extra blood flow whatsoever. And so if you can, you know, push that pedal over. Sew a little bit with that other foot, um, it’s great for that.

It’s also really good for your brain, frankly. Um, it’s, you know, the whole brain gym, the whole getting the wires to the synapses, to fire faster, all these different things that just make it, you just have to think about it a little. There’s no muscle memory, right? So it’s not automatic. You have to think about it. So that is, that is good for your brain.

Uh, you know, I always say that I can’t do a crossword puzzle while I’m sewing, but I can, I can use my left foot for my foot pedal. Um, the other thing that it’s really handy for is you may find, you have a fracture, you have a sprain, you have some kind of surgery, and you’ll be quite happy that you’re, you’re used to using that other foot. Uh, because the first few times you do it, you will go faster. Uh, just because, you know, again, there’s no muscle memory. It catches up really quickly. I mean, it’s not hard to do. That’s important.

So if you’re doing that and you’re adding that extra, you know, box, block of wood, whatever it’s going to be, then make sure that you put that, uh, gripping surface underneath that as well. Um, you mean when you have it under your foot pedal, but put it under that because now you don’t need another thing sliding all over the floor.

Helen: Yeah. I have never tried to use my left foot to operate my machine. I’m definitely going to go do that right after this interview.

Caroline: I also would love your thoughts, Rose, about a standing sewing station. And if that is a good option for some people and how you would set that up?

Rose: Absolutely. So the, uh, parameters are the same as far as, you know, 90 degree to the machine bed. And, the, the thing to remember with sit-stand desks is that they are sit-stand desks. They are not standing desks, which we, you know, we refer to them that way because then we know what we’re talking about.

Um, but you don’t want to go from a hundred percent sitting to a hundred percent standing because you will, um, your posture will deteriorate. And what a lot of us do, and we do this at the ironing board as well, um, is we tend to put a lot more weight on one hip than the other, and my chiropractor told me it was from, you know, having kids. And, you know, um, I was like that, the textbook standing with the phone and the, you know, on one hand and the kid on the other hip.

Um, but a lot of people do that. And it’s, it’s really not great for our bodies. And so we want to work up to, to standing more and, uh, but no, by all means the, uh, I, I, um, my husband’s been working from home for two years, and last Christmas, or maybe the first lockdown Christmas, um, I bought him a standing desk, uh, with the thought that once he went back to the office, of course I was taking it, right?

Um, but that hasn’t happened yet. Uh, but I have, I have full intentions of, um, you know, bringing that into the sewing studio. The tricky thing with that is that the standing desks all have, most of them have a bar across the centre where you put the top on. And so I’m not just sure how, and you’d be able to inset your machine into that, but you could have it on top for sure.

Um, there’s a fellow online, his name, he was just at QuiltCon, his name is Tyg, T-Y-G, I want to say, I want to say Tyg Flanagan, um, but we could check that. But he has a really great tutorial online about how he built his own standing desk sewing table, standing desk. And he did it before they were as popular, and so it was probably a little bit harder for him to find the parts and everything. They’ve really come down in price now. But, uh, yes, I am a fan of them.

Helen: Oh, very cool. Yeah. I’d love to set one up, so I could use it occasionally, and, like you said, kind of, work my way up to it or use it when I’m feeling like I just need to be standing for a little bit, would feel nice. We also noticed in your book that you suggest tilting your machine forward slightly. Why is that helpful?

Rose: So I, and I, and I’m pretty sure I have, I have to check the book ad-, again, because I was pretty sure that I made, like, a big disclaimer when I, when I said that. Well, because you know, a lot of people really like to do that.

I, um, have a cottage, and at my cottage, I have a, I don’t know, whether it’s 40 or 50 year old, uh, Janome, and I use the door stoppers there because there’s no electronics in that machine. And so the reason why people do it is, is it really, it does, it helps you see under that needle better. It really does. And you’re not shifting enough. It doesn’t, it doesn’t affect anything else, but it, it helps you see, um, where you want to see, because it’s, it’s bringing your work to you rather than you to your work.

I’ve, I’ve not done it with my drop-in machine, um, because then it throws off the smoothness of the surface and all that kind of stuff. But I do do it at the cottage where I have a terrible sewing set up, and it’s on top of the table. But the reason I’m always cautious about it is because, I mean, I’m a machinist’s daughter, and I just have always felt that electronics were designed to be used at a stable surface. That’s how they were made. That’s how they should be used.

Now I will say that last year I was speaking at, um, a retreat and the person who was speaking before me was Bernie Tobish, and Bernie Tobish writes the books for CT Publishing on how to fix your machine. And so I asked him, you know, his view on this and he was like, nah, it’s fine. No problem. Don’t worry about it at all. And so he says, it’s okay to do, so, yeah. Basically, it brings your work to you.

Helen: We’ve got the Bernie stamp of approval. That makes a lot of sense. So you’re tilting it away from you so you can actually see that needle plate.

Rose: No, you’re tilting it towards you. You’re tilting it towards you. So you put the doorstoppers under the back.

Helen: Oh.

Rose: And so you’re tilting your machine towards you.

Helen: Oh, okay. I feel like for me, that might make me, like, hunch more to see under the…

Rose: No, it’s only, it’s only a little bit. Here, let me try to think. I’m trying to think. Cause it goes under the back, and it’s a wedge, and the top of the wedge is at the back.

Helen: Yeah. If they’re out the back…

Rose: It’s bringing it up.

Helen: Yeah, bringing it towards you.

Rose: No, it, you try, try it. No try it. It does because it’s, um.

Helen: Yeah, I will. I’m excited.

Rose: It’s a very small amount. It’s very small. Um, but it just, what, what it allows you to see is where the needle is going in. That’s what allows you to see.

Caroline: Yeah. Okay, cool. We’re going to try that one out. Okay. We want to move on to stretches because your book has so many great illustrations of stretches, and we also appreciate all your stretching videos on YouTube. We’ll definitely link some of those up in the show notes, but I wonder what parts of our body should we focus on stretching while we’re sewing?

Rose: And so it, just, just to mention that, the, I’ve just added on YouTube a couple of ones that are, like, six minute and seven minute. So it’s more of a, uh, put together series of people want to do it. Like, you’re at a retreat and, you know, let’s all turn this on or something together, where most of them are, I mean, if you’ve seen them, most of them are just, kind of, wacky.

Um, and I just kinda did what I felt like at the time. So I did have some that are a little bit more, um, structured job, shall we say, but, you know, whatever, whatever. So in personal training, we would always refer to different parts of the body. And this is going to show my age as your non-Mercedes-Benz parts.

So we have parts of our body that are Mercedes-Benz, and we have parts that are not. And so, whatever that is for you, um, whether it’s your ankle or your wrist or your shoulder. Who knows? When you bring that into the sewing studio, it’s not going to get better in the sewing studio on its own.

You’re not on the massage table. You’re not in a hot bath. It’s, you’re not going to make it better there. So what you want to try to do is keep it from getting any worse. Um, and then the other parts of your body that started out fine, you want to keep them from getting bad to begin with. And so I guess my answer to that is, it’s a little bit different for all of us, but because of the work that we do, and we’re using our hands and our wrists a lot, we’re bending a lot, you know, the shoulders get, get tight, regardless. Then, it seems to be a lot of shoulders and lower back and, and hands and wrists.

Helen: And what are some of the stretches that you would recommend for people to start with if they do have that sore neck and shoulders and back and wrists?

Rose: Well, you know, there’s, there’s nothing, there, oh, and I missed one, actually I missed two. And that being the chest that gets really, really tight just from sitting in that position, whether you are sewing, you’re knitting, you’re reading, you’re driving, you’re texting, you’re typing. Uh, your arms are forward on your body and your chest, where it connects at the shoulders, it gets really tight, and the muscles actually can shorten that they contract because they’re in that position all the time.

Um, and the other area that gets tight when we’re seated a lot is, um, our hip flexors, and your hip flexors are basically where the pockets on your jeans are. Those are your hip flexors. And because again, they’re sitting in a compressed position all the time where they’re designed to be long when you’re standing or lying. And so they shorten, and they get tight as well.

And so there’s two ways to look at this. There’s the areas that get tired and tight and sore from overuse. And there’s the areas that get tired and tight and sore from underuse or sitting in one position. And so if it, if it, um, depending on which one you want to address, one that I really like that, that helps with the, the hands and wrists and just, kind of, invigorating the whole body, uh, is, is I call it a three for one. And it’s not three for one for everybody though. That’s the thing.

But really with that, what you’re going to do is you’re going to interlace your hands in front of your body, at chest height, and then you’re going to push them away from your body. And then you’re going to feel that stretch down the underside of your forearms and wrists. And then if that’s good for you, you can just stay right here.

If you wanted to take it a bit farther, you could then have them in that position and then continue lifting your hands overhead. And that actually is not easy for everyone to do. A lot of people will go to do that and they’ll get, sort of, in front of their face, and their arms just stop because their shoulders are really tight. If that’s the case to stop, that’s, that’s fine. That’s where you’re going today.

But if you’re able to go higher, once you get to the top, then you can bring your hands overhead, and then you can arc to one side. So now you’re going to stretch your torso as well. Come back to centre, arc to the other side.

And so that one, I really like, um, but any of the ones that you’re doing for your hands and wrists, if you’re doing the ones where, so you’re either stretching the underside of your wrist or the top half of your wrist. I find it most beneficial to stretch the underside of your wrist first, because when you’re doing that, you are putting pressure on the top part of your wrist. Um, there’s, there’s not much fat there. It’s like bone on bone when it, when it’s coming up.

And so if you do that one first and then follow with stretching the top part, then you’ve sort of alleviated the pain you just caused, if that makes sense. And when we’re stretching the top side of the wrist and forearm, um, the standard one that we see a lot is you put your hand out and then you point your fingers towards the ground. And the one that’s in my book has the hand just coming up then and balancing, um, supporting those fingers, not pushing on them, just supporting them. And, uh, you’ll feel a nice stretch there.

Uh, but another one that I do a lot now that’s not in the book is just bringing your arm out in front. And this one, I mean, I’m all about two for one. This one you can do both arms at once, which is nice because you’re not using the other hand to support, is bringing your arms out in front and, uh, having your hand face towards the ground and then make a fist and then roll your knuckles towards the floor. And then you feel a really, really deep, nice stretch across the top. And you’re only going to go as far as, as feels comfortable.

Uh, most stretches, when you see them, when you look up a stretch, it will say, you know, hold 20, 30 seconds, whatever, you know, they, they say, I prefer to say, hold from five to 30 or five to 60, if you want. But I start with five seconds because it really gives you that permission that if you start into that stretch, um, and it hurts, then you’re going to stop. And it’s five seconds, you’re going to stop.

And it usually just means that you’re far, far tighter than you thought you were. It might mean that you need to reread the instructions for the stretch. It might mean that you’ve gone too far, too fast. Uh, it might mean that stretch is not for you and, uh, you know, email me we’ll, we’ll get you another one, but it’s really important to, to stop at, at the very first sign of pain. I mean, you should feel that it’s stretching. Um, but it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t hurt.

And so those are, those are good ones for there. Shoulders, it’s really just nice to roll your shoulders a lot. It really is. I mean, get that synovial fluid moving. Tell yourself that motion is lotion. And every time you move you’re, you’re sending, uh, fluid to some part of your body. Uh, even if you’re just spreading the, uh, hydration in between your fascia where it’s stuck, even if you’re just spreading that out. Um, it’s, it’s real-, it’s really important.

When your chest is getting really tight, there’s lots of great stretches for that, but really one of the easiest ones to do is just open your arms nice and wide, and just take a few breaths and just relax and just open your arms really wide. If you’re in a chair that allows for you to reach behind the chair, um, and get your, get your arms behind the chair. That is a, that’s a really good habit to get into when you’re, if you’re, you know, you’re on a Zoom call or you’re doing something where you’re, you’re sitting in one position for a while, and you’re not typing or needing your hands, just bring them, just bring them behind your chair once in a while. And, uh, that, that can be nice. There’s lots of, so many different ones.

Helen: Yes, and we will link up your videos. Caroline and I are doing all these stretches while you’re talking, and I have to say it feels really good.

Rose: Yeah. Um, even, even when I was personal training, one-on-one, even when I was telling people what to do. I’m not good at that. I really would have to show them. Like, I would be doing it as I was showing them because it was just so much clearer than telling them.

Helen: Of course.

Caroline: Yeah, I bet you, we have listeners who are going to be, uh, stretching along with your instructions there.

Helen: That’s true. Unless they’re driving.

Rose: I have a great one for driving. I’ll tell you my one for driving.

Caroline: Oh sure!

Rose: When you’re, when you’re driving, because you know, you know, we all are, are victims of, uh, text neck now. And, uh, you know, whether we’re actually texting or not, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, it’s an epidemic. And, um, so one nice thing you can do to counteract that is if you’re driving, um, not that any of us ever leave the house to drive anywhere anymore.

Um, but if you’re driving, then every time you get a stop light, just push your head back into your seat rest, and just push it back into your seat, you know, count to three or whatever you want and bring it back again. And push it back and bring it back again. Um, and it’s, it’s not stretch as much as a, a reverse of the position and of, uh, uh, of a strengthening of the overall neck muscles, but that’s, that’s just really, again, it’s, it’s a habit.

So much of what we do all the time is just habit. And, and whether it’s, you know, people will say that when they’re at the sewing machine that I don’t know, they just can’t do what I seem to be suggesting, and they’re just leaning in. A lot of times it’s just habit. We just, that’s just what we do.

Helen: Yeah. That’s so true. I love that driving tip. I’m going to try that one, too. How often do you recommend that people stretch while they’re sewing and take these little stretching breaks?

Rose: So, you know, I’m, I’m a big fan of spontaneous stretching, and stretching breaks are great. Fantastic. And, you know, anything you’re going to do in the sewing room will never replace your regular, um, activities that you do. And there’s probably stretches that are aligned with those specific activities. Or maybe you do a stretching routine, you do yoga, you do Pilates, whatever it is you do, you do MELT method, which I’m a big, big fan of.

But I like to promote that you stretch every time that you stop, whether you’re, whether you’re loading the bobbin, whether you’re, you walk back over to your ironing board and it’s cooled down and you’ve got to give it that little flip to get it hot again, you know, whether you’re just sitting to think, I don’t know, do I have enough thread left, whatever it is, then that’s when you’re going to stretch.

That’s when you’re just going to reach up and, you know, interlace your hands behind your head and, you know, look at the ceiling and maybe do a little bit of a side bend and whatever it is so that you’re just, you know, that whole waiting for the tea kettle to boil or whatever it is. Um, but you’re just fitting them in all the time because no matter how much we stretch, you know, I, I used to, when I was doing the corporate wellness, I did a little bit, I did everything with them.

Um, I did lunch and learns and one-on-ones, but once in a while I would do, like, a lunchtime exercise class. And I remember this one place we did a lunchtime stretching class, and at the beginning of it, you know, we warmed up and everything. And then we down on the floor, I mean, stretches for quilters, the whole thing with stretches for quilters is you never have to get on the floor. They’re all designed to be done standing or seated.

But in this particular class, um, we got on the floor and we did the typical hamstring stretch with the leg in the air and et cetera, et cetera. And then at the end of the class, and it was only, like, 35 minutes or something at the end of the class, we did the hamstring. And everyone was just as tight as they were at the beginning because the one at the beginning, it felt good, right? That moment, but it really didn’t do enough.

And so my point is no matter how much stretching you’re doing, it’s never enough. So you can always do more because, you know, we’re not chopping wood and driving standards and rolling the windows down on our car and just all of the parts of life where there was so much activity built in. We’re not doing any of that. And so we, we just need to do more and more and more stretching.

Caroline: Well, thanks for that. Okay. We need to wrap up soon cause we’ve been talking for awhile, but we have a couple more questions before we let you go. And one of them is about posture cause we haven’t touched on that too much. And I wonder if you have any tips for improving posture and if there’s a way to, kind of, slowly work towards better posture as a sewist.

Rose: There’s a, there’s a few things. One thing that I like to do is, is I will use what I call a posture reminder. In my view, there’s no such thing as a posture corrector. Um, if you really want to correct your posture, then you need to stretch your chest. You need to be aware and you need to strengthen your back as well, um, to, to keep you upright and to keep your shoulders from rounding forward. But a lot of times, you know, we think we have great posture and everything’s fine.

And so if you take an infinity scarf, if everyone remembers the infinity scarves, and there’s, there’s a pattern for one I’m on my website, but to be honest, the older stretchy kinds work better. But if you take that and loop it into a figure eight or tie a knot, whatever you need to do and, and put it on, like, a vest, sort of. So now you’ve got this, this big figure eight around your, again, it’s hard for me to describe this without, without seeing it in front of you, but basically, you’re going to wear a figure eight around your shoulders on your back. Am I making sense?

Helen: Yeah, absolutely.

Caroline: Like, a little, kind of, like, a shrug almost. Yeah.

Rose: Yeah, exactly. Okay. And so when you put that on, all of a sudden, it will draw you up. Like, it’s not, it’s not heavy duty, but it will draw you up. And then all of a sudden what you’re saying to yourself is, oh, this is the way I should be because we forget the way we should be. That, that’s the problem. We spend all of our life in the position where, you know, we, we think we have great posture, you know, but actually our shoulders are coming forward. The, the, um, attachments where the chest muscles are are shortening, and they’re pulling everything forward.

And it’s not so much, you have a rounded back. You again, you probably can’t even tell by looking at you, but it is there. And so when you put on a posture reminder, then it just tells you where it’s supposed to be.

Um, I have other ones I have, um, you know, when I used to do wellness shows and trade shows and stuff like that in the past, I was always one of those people that bought something from the table beside you. And I bought this rubber gadget from the table beside me. And it’s really great, but it’s tight and it’s uncomfortable and it’s really strong and it really pulls you up, but an infinity scarf will do the same thing. And it just, it just reminds you where you should be, if that makes sense.

And so I think that’s number one. Number one is, is to really tell yourself, show yourself where you’re supposed to be. And then really, it’s just stretching your chest and strengthening your back with a resistance band is easy. Um, and then you’re gonna, there’s a couple of different moves you can do to target different areas of your back. And then once you get really good at that, you can actually just do, um, isometrics and contract your back muscles without using anything, but you have to be fairly body aware to do that.

Um, with my training clients, I used to put my hand on the flat of their backs. And have them do it, and then I can feel whether or not they knew what they were doing. Um, but there is you, you can do it that way. You know, the, the awareness is key. Just setting things up so that you’re not having to bend over in the first place to get into those positions.

Helen: Yeah. That does seem like the ideal, kind of, starting or place to start for people. And with that, we were wondering if you had any suggestions for people out there who may be feeling a little overwhelmed by all this information, wondering what’s the first thing they should do to set themselves up for a more ergonomic sewing practice.

Rose: To be honest, and this is free, I suggest that you move your ironing board. I really do because we go back and forth to it so often. That just trying to get that ironing board is absolutely as far away from you as possible. And, uh, it, it will just make a, such a difference in your overall day and how you feel and how much energy you have, how your legs feel, and, uh, just, you know, take a look around your, your sewing area because, you know, something that I’m saying today might resonate with you, and you look at your ironing board and go, hey, that’s been the same as the great position all along. I’ve been doing it right.

But sometimes it’s nice to know you’re doing it right because you second guess yourself and you move it to the wrong position where you had it right all along, you know? So just basically, try to do things that keep your shoulders down, and that it’s low enough that your shoulders are down, but you’re not having to bend over. And, uh, again, you’re always trying to bring your work to you. So whether it’s with reading glasses, whether it’s with propping pillows up under your work if you’re doing hand stitching of any type. Get some pillows up under there to bring your work up to you.

Helen: Amazing. I’m thinking about putting my ironing board upstairs, so I have to go up the stairs. No, I’m just kidding. But that was not a bad technique if I wanted to get some extra exercise.

Caroline: Uh, okay. Rose, tell our listeners where they can find you online.

Rose: Uh, my website is HealthyQuilting.com. And my Instagram is @HealthyQuilting. And my Facebook is, I think it’s Healthy Quilting with Rose Parr or Rose Parr, Healthy Quilting. I’m, I’m usually on Instagram a lot. I haven’t been, uh, recently just because of, you know, some, some things going on in the world and it’s, it’s, it’s hard to be super cheerful online all the time. Uh, but normally if I post something on Instagram, it automatically goes to Facebook, but I pay more attention to Instagram. And, uh, YouTube I’m, I’m really getting much better at my YouTube videos I will say. And, um, they’re not quite as haphazard. How shall we say?

Helen: I think they’re great. We’re definitely going to link up everything in the show notes so people can go follow along. And of course, your book as well, which we really enjoyed reading. And, Rose, thank you so much for coming and sharing all this knowledge with us. I feel like we’re going to be healthier and happier sewists from now on, and I bet our listeners are going to be going into their sewing studio and taking a look around and making some improvements.

Rose: Yeah. Well, thank you. Let’s, let’s hope everybody takes away a little something that helps.

Caroline: Awesome. Thank you, Rose. You take care. Okay. Bye.

Rose: Bye.

Helen: That’s it for today’s episode of Love to Sew. You can find me, Helen, at HelensClosetPatterns.com and Caroline at BlackbirdFabrics.com! We’re recording in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

Caroline: Go to LoveToSewPodcast.com to find our show notes. They’re filled with links and pictures from this episode. And if you’d like to get in touch with us, send us an email at hello@LoveToSewPodcast.com.

Helen: If you love Love to Sew and want more, you can sign up for our Patreon! For $5 a month, you get a full-length bonus episode and weekly behind-the-scenes pics. For $10 a month, you get all that PLUS a mini-episode focused on sewing techniques and 15% off codes for both Helen’s Closet and Blackbird Fabrics! Patreon is the best way to support us so that we can keep making quality sewing content. Go to patreon.com/LoveToSew, for more info.

Caroline: Thanks to our amazing podcast team. Lisa Ruiz is our creative assistant. Jordan Moore is our editor. And Margaret Wakelee is our transcriber. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you next week.

Helen: Buh-bye.

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