Sleep training is working super well for our family and the baby is sleeping for much longer chunks in the day. We’re on a very loose 3-nap schedule so her first nap is always my dedicated sewing time. This also happens to be her best nap (I’ll pretend that the whir of my machines lull her to sleep), so this week I got to sew in luxuriously long spans of time. At this rate, I may actually get my last two Archers done before my self-imposed deadline of October 1.

Date: Monday, September 11

Time sewing: 45 minutes

What I did: Today I finished the muslin by putting the sleeves on and marked all my alterations onto it. I also did some research on View B of the Archer as I was curious how the ruffle panel on the back looked on different women. As I suspected, the placement of that seam is super important as it can look weird on your butt if too low. I started cutting out some of the pattern pieces.

Date: Tuesday, September 12

Time sewing: 1 hour 10 minutes

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What I did: Huzzah for naps! I got over an hour of uninterrupted sewing time and it’s a good thing, too. Archer has about a zillion pieces, so cutting them out and marking alterations took for freaking ever. Also, since I’m working in plaid, I duplicated everything to be placed on the fold as well as marking the bias on some pieces that I want to cut diagonally.

Date: Wednesday, September 13

Time sewing: 55 minutes

What I did: I started pinning the pieces on. This took way longer than I anticipated as I don’t think my fabric is really straight. I had an extremely difficult time getting the pattern paper to lay flat while keeping all of the stripes where I wanted them. I picked up the fabric about a year ago at a not great store and it’s just reaffirming my resolution to stop buying cheap fabric. I decided to wait until tomorrow to cut so that I can check that everything is in the right place and I have all the pieces I need as I won’t have extra to re-cut anything.

Date: Thursday, September 14

Time sewing: 1 hour 5 minutes

What I did: It’s a good thing the baby is learning to sleep longer, because getting ready to sew this Archer has been a bit of a process. Today, I cut out all of the pieces including the interfacing. Because I was pinning everything in one layer, I also had to re-pin and then some pieces that needed duplicates but I couldn’t be bothered to re-trace. I devised a post-it strategy to keep everything organized so I don’t think I missed anything.

Date: Friday, September 15

Time sewing: 45 minutes

What I did: I fused all of my interfacing.

Date: Saturday, September 16

Time sewing: 15 minutes, over the span of about 45 minutes

What I did: I realized that I fused one bit of interfacing wrong, so I took it off and re-did it. I also switched the thread on my serger. I did all of this in little fits and starts while getting a late lunch/early dinner ready. This is the only kind of sewing that I can handle doing in teensy chunks.

Date: Sunday, September 10

Time sewing: 5 minutes; 5 minutes; 5 minutes; 10 minutes

What I did: I serged everything over the course of the morning and went to get my sewing machine ready when I realized that I didn’t have the thread I needed for this project. Whomp whomp.

Total time sewing this week: 5 hours 20 minutes

What I learned:

• Sleep training is amazing. I no longer feel guilty squeezing in 20 minutes of sewing while my daughter stares at me from her swing.
• Always make absolutely sure you have everything you need before starting a project, ie. thread.
• Some steps of a project are not meant to be done in 10-minute chunks. Had it not been for my daughter taking longer naps this week, I’m sure I would have royally messed up cutting out my fabric. It took a lot of consolidated time and concentration to make sure the pattern pieces were right and to match my plaids.
• Other tasks are absolutely suited to multi-tasking. Things such as fusing interfacing and serging are pretty mindless and easily put down and picked back up while doing other things (ie. cooking).
• Having the stove in eye-shot of my sewing chair is amazing because I can serge and simmer simultaneously!