20 Minutes to Sew – An Experiment

wip - ginger skirt

It fits, it fits! Huzzah!

Let’s face it: we all don’t have a lot of time to sew.  Heck, I can barely find time to go to the grocery store and do my laundry every week.  I usually leave my sewing and crafting until the weekend when I’m off from work (yes, I have weekends now!), but that somehow manages to get erased from the weekend agenda when there are things to do like going to the beach and mini golf (oh yeah, and that laundry and grocery shopping thing I mentioned before).  What’s a crafty bitch to do?

Since saving all of my sewing time for one or two days a week isn’t working, I made a goal with myself for the week: carve out about 10-20 minutes each day this week to sit down at my sewing machine and see what I can stitch up in that frame of time.  Of course it’s not an original thought; Nancy Zieman has a whole line of sewing patterns called “10-20-30 Minutes to Sew.”  She’s right: a few minutes here and there each day can quickly add up to a finished project.

Monday night went pretty well – I got all four panels of my Ginger skirt stitched together, pressed, and finished the seams with my pinking shears.  I figured out that if I can sew at that productivity level each day, here’s what I can accomplish this week:

  • Tuesday: Fuse waistband interfacing, stitch waistband pieces together
  • Wednesday: Stitch waistband to skirt 
  • Thursday: Insert zipper
  • Friday: Hem skirt

So if I can stick to the agenda, I’ll have a cute skirt to wear for the weekend.  If this experiment works this week, this may be the way that I do my sewing from now on.

The only downside?  I’ll  need a white top to wear with my new skirt by Saturday…

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4 Comments

  1. June 12, 2012 / 6:54 pm

    It's a good thought, and one I've been considering myself– I have so little time to sew these days!

    • June 12, 2012 / 9:49 pm

      I know, it's really hard to find time to do even the things you love…I hope this works!

  2. June 14, 2012 / 1:48 pm

    This works if you have either a dedicated sewing area or are able to leave your project out all the time. If your sewing space is the dining room table and other people want to, oh you know, EAT there, that 20 minutes of sewing turns out to be only 15 or less, due to cleanup.

    Still, it's a great idea. After all, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

  3. June 20, 2012 / 10:14 pm

    Ooh, this is super timely for me. I'm trying to get some summer clothes made, but I keep waiting for that uninterrupted block of time that never arrives. 🙂 I'll try this 20-minute model – and thank you!

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