Best Habits for Staying Organized With Your Sewing

Podcast Transcript

Sarai

I'm Sarai.

Haley

And I'm Haley.

Sarai

And this is Seamwork Radio. Welcome back to Seamwork Radio, where we share practical ideas for building a creative process so you can sew with intention and joy. And today, we're talking about the best habits that you can put into place to stay organized while you sew. So we're going to cover things you can do annually, things you can do seasonally, and then things you can do at each and every sewing session. All right, let's talk about New Year's resolutions, Haley. So, our icebreaker for today is: do you have any sewing New Year's resolutions?

Haley

Yeah, I have ideas around it. I've been feeling sentimental lately, and I want to sew more heirloom special things for my daughters, be that like clothing or a banner that we put up every single year on their birthday. I want to create a little treasure box for each of them of things that I have made. I, like, historically have not sewn a super ton for them, also for special occasions and Halloween. I bought some boxes recently to, like, put keepsakes in. I've put some baby clothes and things, and I was like, "Oh, this is kind of a bummer that there's not very many handmade things in here." So that is something that I'm going to be working on in this next year. And I'm also going to teach Charlie how to "zo," as she likes to call it. She's requested to learn how to "zo." I guess that's her New Year's resolution.

Sarai

Well, I guess it's kind of for both of you. She made it, but it's for both of you.

Haley

She wants to make doll clothes, so I thought I'd make her a little rag doll for Christmas and then get her a bunch of like fat quarters of fabric

Sarai

Oh, fun

Haley

and she can sew doll clothes.

Sarai

Oh, that's so cute.

Haley

Yeah, it'll be really cute. I'm excited.

Sarai

Yeah.

Haley

Okay, what about you? What are your sewing New Year's resolutions?

Sarai

Well, I think if you watch our YouTube channel, you might have seen the video that I did about my overall goal for my sewing, which is that I want to have an 80% handmade wardrobe. So not 100%, but 80%, just have clothes that I have made myself to wear most of the time. So that's kind of filtering into my New Year's resolution, which is to make some progress on that. I haven't figured out how to make that concrete—how many things I want to make, if I want to make it a goal of how many pieces I want to sew, or maybe replace in my closet. So I have to think about that aspect of it a little bit, but it's something towards that. I do want to make more of the things that I really enjoy sewing and that I enjoy wearing. I like to make special things, and then I like to make really, really practical things. So I want to definitely do a mix of those and experiment with some maybe vintage techniques and make some really fancy blouses or something like that this year. So I'm really excited about that. I want to try some new details and techniques I haven't done before. So maybe that'll be a separate New Year's resolution, as to maybe make three really special pieces or something like that, using a new technique I haven't done before. And then I can share it on the YouTube channel.

Haley

I'm thinking of all of the 2025 sewing patterns we have coming out. That'll be amazing for that.

Sarai

I know. It's going to be a great year for sewing. All right, well, if you have an icebreaker question for a future episode, you can give it to us. If you're a Seamwork member, just go to seamwork.com/go/icebreakers, and you can leave it there. That will take you to a thread on our community where you can post your question, and we will likely use it in a future episode.

Okay, so we're going to be talking about organization today, and I'm really excited about this because I think at this time of year, a lot of us are thinking about how to keep things simple, stress-free, and serene. So, this, I think, is going to help me as much as it's going to help you guys. I think people think about organization as this really big, huge, one-time task that you do, when really, I think it boils down to consistency in doing things over time. That's what we're going to be talking about today. And I think the majority of it is just accomplished with some really easy tasks that take, you know, maybe 1-5 minutes, and that you can do every time, or you can do them periodically. So that's what we're going to be talking about today, and give you some ideas of how you can maintain your space and keep yourself organized over time.

So, on a scale of 1-10, Haley, with 10 being the most organized, how would you rate your sewing habits and why?

Haley

Okay. I would rate myself a nine, but I have kind of an organizational pain point right now, and that's my sewing stash. I'm using an organizational system for a closet that doesn't really work for it. It's from my old house, and I've lived in this house for coming on three years, but I just haven't invested the money in figuring out a new system. So, it is a little bit of a pain point for me. It's not totally disorganized, but it's just a little impractical. So, I'm going to knock it down to an eight because of that. But I'm pretty organized. If you ask me to find something, I can find it for you in a matter of minutes. I'm really good about cleaning up as I go and all of that kind of stuff. I'm like generally a pretty tidy person.

Sarai

Yeah, you're organized. You're pretty tidy.

Haley

What about you? What's your number?

Sarai

So I think in life, in general, I would give myself, I'm talking about my natural tendencies, like a five at best. I am not an organized person. I mean, I am an organized person, but I'm not a tidy person.

Haley

Okay.

Sarai

I think there's a difference. I think I'm very good at organizing information and ideas and stuff like that, but I'm not great with physical stuff. Generally, I would say this is not my forte, but I've really worked on my sewing space and getting all the things in place. And I think that's a testament to what we're going to talk about today, which is that having some of the right tools and the right processes in place to keep yourself organized goes a long, long way, even if, like, you're naturally kind of messy. I'd say in my sewing area, I'm like a seven and a half, I would say. Pretty good.

Haley

I would even mark you as an eight. I think your sewing shed is like really…

Sarai

It is pretty organized.

Haley

It's organized.

Sarai

I would say the sticking point for me is when I'm in the middle of a project..it gets a little chaotic in there. I tend to clean up in little bursts. So, we'll talk about that a little bit today. But other than that, yeah, I think I'm pretty organized in there.

Haley

So what area do you think you could improve your organization the most?

Sarai

Well, I think fabric, probably. I've worked on that for sure. And we'll talk about some videos from my sewing show that you can go watch if you want to see some of the things I've done in there. But I could probably use more fabric cleanouts—just cleaning out my stash more often. I think that's the area I struggle with because I have a lot of fabric that I really love, but realistically, I probably won't get to it all.

Haley

Yeah, I feel like that's my pain point is like my fabric organizational system is not super great right now. I have everything picked out for my IKEA that I want, but I'm like being cheap about it. And I also don't want to build a bunch of IKEA furniture.

Sarai

Yeah.That's the thing for me with IKEA.

Haley

Maybe I can bribe Eric into doing it for me. I don't know.

Sarai

We should do an IKEA run together. I could use some task lighting for sure.

Haley

Oh my gosh. Yes. I have a long list. Let me know. Yeah, that's probably my pain point right now and the area that needs a little bit of extra love. Maybe I'll tackle it soon. Do you have any ways that you trick yourself into staying organized, like mind hacks?

Sarai

I don't know if I have any mind hacks necessarily, but I do think having some little rituals around it helps. I don't know if that's a mind hack, but it really helps me because I think the more I can automate things—especially things I don't particularly like doing—the better. So here's an example: I'm really bad about putting away my laundry because Ken does the laundry in our house, and he always does it on Sundays. I always forget about it until it's time to go to bed, and it's Sunday night, and I have to be up early in the morning. I get to the bedroom, and there's laundry everywhere. So, I've been working lately on having kind of a routine around it where I set aside time each weekend to just put away the laundry so I don't forget about it. I think those kinds of things, if I can create a ritual in my day or week to do something I don't enjoy, that really, really helps me. What about you?

Haley

I like to talk about future Haley. She's a different person than me.

Sarai

I like that.

Haley

Because I think that a lot of people can relate to this. Sometimes it's easier to convince yourself to do something if it's for someone else instead of for yourself. Just like a whole other issue that we won't get into. But if I talk about future Haley, she's someone else, I'm like, you know what? Let's just put it away for future Haley. She's going to love it. It's this little conversation I have in my mind, and I'm like, - yeah, she will.

Sarai

I love that.

Haley

She definitely will.

Sarai

I'm going to try that with the laundry.

Haley

Try it. I don't know why - it works really well for me.

Sarai

The laundry made me think of another little tip, which is combining... I think I've read about this in books, too, but this is something I've been doing a long time, which is combining something you don't enjoy with something you do enjoy.

Haley

Oh, yeah. Habit stacking.

Sarai

Yeah. So that you can get it done. So that's really helpful. So when I put away laundry, I always put a podcast on or an audiobook or whatever, something that's going to be enjoyable to listen to. So it feels like ‘me time’ while I'm doing it. So that's another little trick I use.

Haley

I love that. One of my, like, drawing tasks for work that I always put off doing is drawing the inside flats because it takes thinking, but not thinking super hard. And I always put on, like, an audiobook or something to convince myself and talk myself into doing it.

Sarai

All right, well, let's get into our tips. So, we talked about how we're going to approach this, which is to look at habits that you can create around every sewing session. Then, we're going to talk about habits you can create for each season, and finally, ones you can do just once a year. So, we're going to start with the ones that you can do every time you sew. Here are a few things that could be helpful to you. One is to have two toolboxes: one for your most used tools, and then one that's more specialized. Having this system really makes cleanup a lot easier, and you can also find your tools a lot quicker.

In my own sewing shed, I actually recently went to a big flea market and got this basket that I think is for... It's like a caddy basket with little compartments in it. It's really cute. But I've been using that for my "every time I sew" tools—basically all the tools I use every single time—and I keep it right next to my cutting table. It makes it really accessible. Then, my cutting table has drawers, and I have one drawer for the tools I use a little less frequently. It really does speed things up, and it makes it a lot easier to clean up. I can just toss my most used tools into that basket really quickly and easily, and I can get them out just as easily. I like that tip a lot.

The next one—this is something I could do a little bit better at, but I really try to do it—is to do some mini tidying while you sew. It’s kind of like how you clean up while you cook, just putting things away as you go. So when you find yourself at a natural break, you can just take a few minutes and clean up the mess that you've made. Obviously, there will be things you need to leave out, but sometimes there’s a lot of stuff just kind of hanging around—loose threads, pins, tools you’re done with but might not need anymore. For me, there’s always scraps all over the floor, so I always try to clean those up as I go so I don’t come back into my sewing shed later and just find garbage everywhere. It makes me feel a lot better.

Haley

Yeah, this is a big one for me. I find it really demotivating to clean up at the end of my sewing session if I've been like totally unruly the entire time with it. Every time I like take a break to fill up my water bottle or use the restroom, I always just take a few minutes to do that.

Sarai

Yeah. For me personally, because my sewing space is in the shed outside the house, I often have to go back to the house to use the bathroom, refill my water, or whatever. So that's an opportunity for me to just grab all the leftover paper from cutting out my pattern, or garbage, or the leftover scraps and take them to the garbage while I go. It helps a lot. I think the more serenity you can create around your sewing, at least for me, the more motivating it is.

The next tip is to have a standard place to store your in-progress project. This is such a big one for me. There are a lot of ways you could do this. You could put it back into your sewing queue, wherever you keep that. You can hang it up, or you can put it in another bin at your sewing space. There are a lot of ways you can do it. For me personally, if you've seen my recent video on my sewing shed tour, I have a vintage basket — one of those big market baskets — that is hanging on a peg in my sewing room. And once I've cut out a project, if I'm not going to sew it right away, it goes right into that basket, and it's more or less hidden. t's off the floor. It's tidy, but it's very accessible and really easy to grab. It's right next to my cutting table, so I don't feel like I have to, you know, undo a bunch of stuff, take out a bunch of stuff, or look for it or anything like that. It's just right there. So just think about how you can keep your in-progress projects out of the way, but accessible at the same time. There are a lot of easy ways you can do that, but it really, really helps me to get started again. I think sometimes that's the hardest part — just getting back into a project that you've put down, especially if you've put it down for a little while. I find this with knitting, especially. Like when I have not knit on a sweater I'm working on for a week, two weeks, it's so hard to go back to it compared to if I do a little bit every day. That's sort of a separate issue, but I do think that moment of coming back to something - is something you can kind of prime yourself for.

Haley

Yeah, that's a big one for me, too. The more set up I can leave it, whether that's how I store it, marking my place in the instructions, or making sure I'm taking notes, it all makes a huge difference.

Sarai

Yeah. And then finally, you can set a five-minute timer for a deeper cleanup at the end of each session. So, if you do that, if you leave your sewing space tidy, like I said, it's just easier to get back into and start sewing again. So, I like to do a real throw cleaning between projects and then do kind of a real basic, simple few minutes of cleaning after every time I sew. And that just helps to keep things feel manageable, you know. So it doesn't feel overwhelming at any one point. I really like the idea, I think you've talked about this several times on the podcast, Haley, you've just setting a timer for things like this. And it really, really helps.

Haley

A little bit of urgency. It really does it. Yeah. And it makes, it tricks your mind until not thinking it's this endless task. This will only be five minutes of my life, and then we're done.

Sarai

Yeah. And I think this works even for things that you enjoy doing. Weirdly, for sewing, for example, sometimes I'll put it off because I don't feel like I have enough time before I have to make dinner or whatever. I was feeling this way last night. I was like, I'd planned to sew after work, and then I was like, well, I got to make dinner in like half an hour, and, you know, I don't have time. But you can sew for any period of time. So, you know, sometimes just setting a little timer and being like, well, I could do it for five minutes. I could do it for 10 minutes. I could do it for 15 minutes.

Haley

You can set a sleeve. You can sew a zipper. Yeah, lots of things.

Sarai

Yeah. Again, just kind of getting over those mental hurdles sometimes.

Haley

Yeah. All right. I'm going to dig into things that you can do each season of the year to keep on top of the tidiness and organization of your sewing space. I will say that how you define season can be kind of up to you. This could be something you do—winter, spring, summer, and fall—or it could be something that you do twice a year. Or this is just more like periodically throughout the year, things that are helpful. One of the things that I like to do is go through my physical project queue and set it up for the upcoming season. I think this kind of sets the tone for a more productive, enjoyable upcoming season. So I like to get my physical project queue nice and ready to go. So whether you use a file box or a Ziploc baggie, there are lots of different organizational techniques you can use here.

Sarai actually has a really great video. It's called "Five Genius Ideas for Organizing Your Fabric Stash," which can really set you up well for organizing that queue. It can help to have a planning process. I really like "Design Your Wardrobe," and I like that we have it each season now. So, it can be a nice reminder to kick off the upcoming season. I also like to take inventory of what I have. I put away the projects that I didn’t get to last season. I destash and just do a once-over of my sewing space, put things away, and get rid of things that I don’t think I’m going to use anymore. This doesn’t have to be a super deep destash, but just set a 20-minute timer and kind of go through your space. Really helpful.

Sarai

Yeah.

Haley

Pick something to declutter. This is where I'll get a little bit more focused on one particular area. I think that if you set a goal to organize your entire sewing space and all of your sewing stuff all in one day, you’re probably going to burn yourself out more than likely. So, I like to pick one area that I'm going to declutter. So, this can be my fabric. If I'm feeling low energy, it could be my thread. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be, but pick something and declutter it, organize it a little bit. And then, that way, if you pick something new each season, you never have to do a whole reset of your sewing space. You can just kind of file through those guys.

Sarai

Yeah.

Haley

And then do a little deeper clean of your sewing space. Take care of the things you don't do on your day-to-day. So, maybe this will be different for everyone, depending on your space. Maybe it's dusting your light fixture or washing the curtains or something. Set a timer for yourself. This can be like a 30-minute timer, a 15-minute timer, and do a little bit of a deeper clean of the space. Some of those eyesores that you've maybe been noticing each and every time you sew, but never get around to.

Sarai

Yeah. For me, it's the rug in my sewing space.

Haley

Aha

Sarai

Gosh. I was in there over the weekend, and I was out in the yard with the dogs. And I don't think Gordie, our new dog, had seen me out there before. So he got so excited when he saw me. He ran in and there were muddy pauperines all over it. So if you've seen my recent sewing shed video, I talk a bit about this rug and ideas for replacing it.

Haley

You need a printed one? Yeah, I definitely do. I have a big printed rug, and it, like, hides all of the little bits and bobs.

Sarai

Yeah, we have one on our entrance, and It hides dirt a lot better. It still needs to be cleaned a lot, but it at least doesn't look so filthy.

Haley

For me, it's my window. My desk faces a window, and every few months, I just have to get the Windex or the squeegee out and give it a clean because all the little smudges—I don't know how they get there.

Sarai

Children is probably how they get there.

Haley

It just needs to be cleaned. You know, those little things that bother you. Go ahead and indulge yourself in fixing those.

Sarai

Yeah. It feels good when you set aside the time specifically for it, I think.

Haley

And whenever I do this, I always feel like a deep need to sow after. I'm like, I want to be in this space. Give me a project right now.

Sarai

That's true. That's true, yeah. All right, we have one more that I want to share with you, which is our habits for each year. We've talked about each session, we've talked about seasonally, so let's talk about habits for each year.

The first one is to take your machine in for servicing. This should definitely be done on the regular. The more you ignore this, the bigger the problems you can encounter with your machine. So, this is definitely something you want to keep on top of. Get your scissors sharpened and replace any tools that are dull or broken. I think it's a good time to go through your pins, for example, and get rid of anything that's bent. I know I tend to sometimes ignore the broken or bent pins until it's too late and I've got one in there. That's something you can do once a year—just kind of go through everything and make sure that all your tools are in tip-top shape.

You can even do an annual retrospective. Reflect on what you've made in the last year, maybe do a little bit of journaling, start making a list of things that you want to do differently this year, things that you've learned, and things that you want to try. I think it's helpful just to sit down, even if it's just for 15 minutes, and kind of bullet things out. It can be really helpful. I personally am a big fan of writing down lessons learned. This is helpful to do as you go, but then you can kind of take all of those lessons and maybe catalog them for an entire year at the end of the year, or the beginning of a new one. I find that really, really helpful with sewing or with anything, really. So, those are the habits that we wanted to share with you that are going to help you stay organized. Whether you're a naturally organized person like Haley or a naturally disorganized person like me—or I should say, naturally messy person like me—organized but messy. Let me just share kind of a recap of those habits, and then we'll talk about what our big takeaways are.

The habits that you can do with each sewing session that we shared are to have a most used toolbox and a specialized toolbox, to do some mini tidying while you sew, to have a standard place to store your in-progress projects, and to set a five-minute timer for a deeper cleanup at the end of each session. And then the habits for each season, which Haley shared, are to have a physical project queue with all of your fabric and supplies ready to go, to take an inventory of what you have seasonally, to pick one thing to declutter for the season, and to do a little bit of a deeper cleaning. And then habits that you can do once a year are to take your machine in, get your scissors sharpened, replace tools that need to be replaced, and do an annual retrospective on what you've made and what you've learned for the year.

So, those are some of our tips for staying organized. What's your big takeaway from this episode, Haley?

Haley

I was just thinking about how being good at something, like organization, for example, like we're talking about today, really, in a lot of cases, boils down to the day-to-day habits that you create and the process or approach you take to it. Whether it's being organized, learning how to sew, or expanding on a particular skill, those two things are the keys to unlocking self-improvement. And I think that sometimes we can build things up to be this big thing or put pressure on ourselves to get really good at something overnight, when really it's like a long-term commitment of teeny tiny steps—steps which you can choose to look at as daunting, I guess. But I look at it as really freeing, that I don't have to be good at something overnight. I don't have to do everything in one day. I just have to take one step forward, put one foot in front of the other each and every day. Yeah, that's something I was thinking about as you were recapping for us.

Sarai

Yeah. I think mine is kind of related, which is that I think often the first step is always the hardest. Anything you can do to get over that mental hurdle—the first step in something that is either something you don't want to do, or something that's just daunting, or that you're not sure how to proceed with, or that just makes you anxious or uncertain—can help. You kind of have to find the ways that work for you to trick yourself into getting over that hurdle in order to get into it. Then, once you're into it, you find that it's usually not as scary, difficult, or unpleasant as you thought it was going to be. I think that's true for a lot of things. For me, cleaning.

Well, if you need more help staying organized, we actually have a free tool that can help you. It's the ultimate guide to setting up your sewing space, which is a free mini guide that has tons of tips and ideas for creating a better and more functional sewing area, no matter how much space you have. So, if you want that, you can download it at seamwork.com/go/sewingspaces. That's seamwork.com/go/sewingspaces.

If you like this episode, you can leave us a review. We love hearing from you guys. We love reading your reviews. We read every single one. So, if you want to leave us one on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now, we would super appreciate it. You can also follow us on YouTube at Seamwork Video. We are always producing videos over there, and they are really fun to make, and I think they're pretty fun to watch. If you've been interested in hearing anything about my sewing shed or seeing it in action, you can see it over there. You can also follow us on Instagram at Seamwork.

And if you'd like to join Seamwork and become part of our private community, plus get access to hundreds of sewing patterns and dozens of sew-along classes, our podcast listeners get a 50% off lifetime discount when you join at seamwork.com/go/podcast50.. So that's seamwork.com/go/podcast50.

And that's it for us this week. I'm Sarai.

Haley

And I'm Haley.

Sarai

And this is Seamwork Radio. Seamwork Radio is brought to you by the team at Seamwork. Seamwork is an online community that supports you in creating a wardrobe that feels right for you. When you join us at Seamwork, you become part of our private community of makers, and you also get access to monthly sew-along classes, a library of over 200 sewing patterns, and tons of great resources to help guide you through the sewing adventure that you choose. Podcast listeners can get half off a Seamwork Unlimited membership, which means you can download as many of those 200 plus patterns as you want at any time, and our community will be there to guide and support you. If you'd like to join us for half off, just visit seamwork.com/go/podcast50. You can also find us on Instagram at Seamwork or visit our YouTube channel, which is called Seamwork Video. We love hearing from you, so let us know if there's a topic or a personal story that you'd like us to cover. Thanks for listening to Seamwork Radio.