Ease into Motherhood

Sewing and small children. In many ways, they seem to be sworn enemies of one another. Finding the physical and mental space to sew, whilst being present and available for kids who depend on you for pretty much everything sounds like an impossible task, or at least a recipe for disappointment and frustration. I often hear of women who used to sew before they had children, then stopped, and are trying to get back into it now that their children are older. I can totally understand the decision to not even bother trying to get any sewing done for the duration of your children's early childhoods. But for me, that's not an option, sewing is too big a part of my life. So today I want to talk about why and how I manage to sew whilst being a mum to two tiny peops. 

The prompt for this post came from an invitation to take part in 'Ease-in to Motherhood': a sewists' celebration of motherhood and the changes it brings to our lives, created and hosted by Monserratt, Jodi and Erin. Read here for the full details of this important and beautiful initiative. The motivation to create connection between mothers who sew is similar to my own reasons for setting up the recent dribble bib sewing swap (check out #greatsewingbibswap on Instagram). Anyways, the organisers of Ease-in Motherhood have left it super open about what to write about in relation to these topics, and at first I felt pretty overwhelmed as I have SO MUCH I want to say about all of it! A couple of months ago I felt a blog post brewing about my disgust at the damaging concept of 'bouncing back' after a pregnancy and birth, but I just read Jodi's touching piece on this subject in which she handles it with much more grace than my bile-filled rant probably would have done! So on with my contribution...

Somehow, I've become a stay-at-home-mum who does bits of paid work at the weekends. I never planned to be a SAHM. When Pat and I talked about how we saw our family operating before we had Dolores, we agreed to share the childcare and our freelance work endeavours 50/50, and to keep our child/children home with us rather than in childcare until they were about three years old. But the financial realities were such that two part-time freelance-whatever-you'd-call-what-we-do/did wasn't bringing in enough to live in this pricey part of a pricey country. So I ended up taking on the lion share of the childcare as Pat went out to work full-time, and things will probably stay this way until they are both at school. And the truth is, being a stay-at-home-mum is freaking hard, the hardest job I've ever, and will ever do, I have no doubt. One of the things about being a SAHM (or a SAHD, or any other type of full-time carer), is that no matter how many playdates, playgroups, playgrounds, classes or activities you get involved in, there is A LOT of being stuck at home involved. What's more, you are ALWAYS on call. I find it can be incredibly claustrophobic, and as an escape I have sewing. 

(Frankie caught trying to mess with my sewing machine)

So, sewing. I have to admit that my current relationship with sewing is bordering on compulsive. Working on sewing projects, having something to push forward with, has become even more important to me since having children than before. I'm not sure if the amount I think about (if not actively doing) sewing is healthy, but it is helping me get through this insanely intense part of motherhood so I can't see it changing for the foreseeable future. Sewing accesses a creative part of myself, a need to make stuff with my hands, that has always been part of who I am. And clothing has been the main way that I interpret and have a dialogue with society and popular culture since I was a teenager. 

But why has my need to sew amped up so much since becoming a mum? Partly, I think it's the desire to do something that doesn't get almost immediately undone (laundry, washing up, tidying etc.) but I'm also guessing that it's because I don't have much else to get my teeth into at the moment: my 'career' has somewhat stalled, I'm not developing any new classes to teach and I no longer organise the craft market I set up in 2010. And the other things I'm really inspired to do, like planning and going on trips and experimenting with growing food, are currently hampered by a lack of funds and any outside space. 

And then there's the final product. I get a lot of joy and pride from opening up my wardrobe and seeing that more than 90% has been made by me: that I have chosen how I wish to present myself to the world (which I then temper with the realities of my day-to-day life) and made it myself. Or to watch my kids running around having a crazy time, or contentedly chewing on a lego brick, whilst wearing something I made them. 

However, it's hard to square all this sewing that I'm doing (or planning to do) with my desire to live a vaguely sustainable life that does NOT include the constant acquisition of 'stuff'. So in an attempt to justify my out-put, I'm very careful to only work on garments and accessories for myself and my kids that will get used a lot, and I try to sew with my existing fabric stash or with secondhand textiles for a good proportion of my projects (which I know I could do better at). 

(sleepy faces selfie)

So how do I get the sewing get done with these small peops about? Mainly in my head. I'm mentally present when I'm with my kids and they want me to engage with them, but when I'm doing boring SAHM-related stuff like cleaning the kitchen, or breastfeeding in the middle of the night, I'll often be mulling over the next few steps of my current sewing project, or what I should use a certain piece of fabric for. So when they are in bed, or when one is at nursery and other is napping, I can ATTACK. I'm sure most people, including new(-ish) parents, will tell you that they are so much more productive with their spare time once it has become severely limited. 

But breaking it down further, I'd say that I find two types of chances for sewing. There's the longer stretches lasting an hour or two, like after they're in bed and the tidying up is done, or during a Frankie-nap on a Dolores-nursery day. (The annoying thing is that Frankie sleeps in our bedroom, which is where my sewing table also lives, so I have to remember to take everything that I'll need for the sewing sesh out of there and into the lounge before putting him down.) And then there's the micro-sewing opportunities. These are the teensy windows of time in which you can do something small to aid your project. Like the incredibly rare times that they are both playing and no one needs me, I might change over the threads on my overlocker. Or whilst I'm waiting for the potatoes to boil, I might pin a sleeve into an armhole. Often I'll do other SAHM-related activities in those micro-windows, but the thing is that there are always SAHM-related activities you could find to do, so sometimes I claim the windows for myself and my mental health instead.

I've written this blog post like I undertake my sewing projects: in chunks of time here and there, so it's been on my mind for a while. And my conclusion is that I have not drawn a conclusion. I don't know if my current relationship with sewing is entirely positive, but it seems to be serving a necessary purpose. And I guess there could be worse things to be addicted to!

I'd love to know your thoughts on your relationship to sewing, particularly through motherhood. Did you manage to maintain one? If so, any tips? How has it changed as your kids have got older? Did you ever find yourself getting a bit obsessed with sewing when you were going through a particularly tricky or intense stage of your life?