How to Make Time for Sewing (and You!) With Kids

Being a single mom (or any mom) leaves very little down time. It seems every minute is taken up with working, cleaning, or caring for little ones. There’s a lot of talk about self-care and how important it is (and it is) but where does that time come from? There are still only 24 hours in a day (please let me know if you have found the secret to more!) and my body still requires sleep. Of course, I push the limits with the sleep thing.

So what’s a mom to do? Well, here are a few things that work for me:

Find time in the morning or evenings

I am a bit of a night owl so finding time in the evening after the kids go to bed works best for me. It also leads to staying up too late when I get involved in a project (see Mombie above) but it is usually a great time to find some quiet, uninterrupted time. Because they are asleep and should be until morning, I have a longer block of time to work with.

I am not a morning person and never will be (I’ve tried). But if you are a morning person you may want to get up a few minutes earlier each day and get a little sewing time in before the littles wake up. I have a friend that would sew in the morning for 15 minutes when her kids were young and said she was amazed at how much she could accomplish. I can’t think of a better way to start the day!

Involve your kids

A great way to spend time doing something you enjoy is include your kids. Find a way they can help or something similar they can do while you are sewing. Of course, the activities will depend on their age but it is possible to find things even the littlest can do. Now, some days this works better than others and you have to be flexible enough to scrap what you are doing and switch activities if it isn’t working. But when it does work, it is a great way to get in a few extra minutes of sewing time.

Outsource if you can

As I said, there are only 24 hours in a day. Sometimes there just isn’t time to fit anything else in so it may be possible to outsource some activities to free up some time. If you are able to outsource cleaning or cooking, that would definitely free up some time for sewing! As a mama on a budget, I can’t outsource much. However, while my littles are, well, little, and I have less time and less energy for being creative, I do outsource some of the sewing prep work by buying kits that are ready to be sewn. I love browsing fabric stores and choosing the perfect fabric for a new project. Right now that just doesn’t happen (Corralling little ones in the quilt store isn’t as much fun). So for now I am happy to find beautiful kits with pre-chosen fabrics all ready for me to stitch together. I still get my sewing time and I still have a beautiful quilt to show for my time. And someday I will once again have time to create my own!

Look for time wasters

I can’t make extra hours in the day but I have learned that how I spend my time is a choice. There are plenty of things that I have to do and I will probably never get to spend as much time doing the things I want to do as I would like. But, I also spend too much time watching T.V. and checking Facebook. Which is okay. Sometimes I need something mindless. And sometimes I’m too tired to do much else. But that is also time that I can be doing things I really enjoy, the things I am constantly complaining that I don’t have time to do. So I have started trying to take back that time and use it to do things I truly love to do. Now I try to limit my social media time and use my T.V. time to also work on hand projects. Maybe there is some area that you can improve how you spend your time as well?

Mommin’ is hard and I hope you take time to do something you enjoy. These are a few of the ways I try to find time for sewing. How do you make time for the things you enjoy?