Three: Sewing is Mindful
Sewing is Magic is a four-week journey into making your own magic with a sewing machine. Whether you’re an absolute beginner or you’d like to refresh your knowledge of the basics, this class will give you the foundation to make anything your heart desires!
This blog post series is a pre-course correspondence leading into the Sewing is Magic Course. Interested in learning more or joining? Click here!
Sewing is Mindful
Here we are in our last pre-course post. Are you excited to get started? Do you have any questions I can answer if you're still deciding whether or not to join?
Building on the theme of practice; I believe anything can be a practice, a spell, a mindfulness exercise, a prayer. The difference between doing something and experiencing that same thing as a practice is the intention put into it. I love practicing sewing because I always learn something new (yes, me!) and I keep getting happier with the results the longer I practice What really turned my get-to-the-finish-line mentality around when it comes to sewing was really starting to do it for the process.
Sewing is a practice. It's a skill, sure, and a useful one at that. But it's also a practice, or it can be. A couple months ago, my youngest daughter and I were practicing yoga while the dough was rising for family pizza and movie night. In fact, we practice every single day. The older Seattle kid is a postal carrier and comes over right after work every Friday. As the youngest and I rolled out our mats, the older one jokingly asked “You two are always practicing yoga. When are you going to actually do it?”
The answer is always and in every moment. It didn't start that way, though. The more I started paying attention to how I was talking to myself during yoga classes in the before times, the more I realized how unkind I was being to myself. I practiced noticing how I talk to myself when I make mistakes in my work. I practiced noticing whether or when I would get frustrated with myself during sewing and it was the same thing. I realized if I couldn't start practicing enjoying the process of these things, I really needed to stop doing them. I was reinforcing my own negative self-talk by unconsciously practicing it during my favorite activities. I decided to continue to notice, but add the extra step of asking “Is that true?” whenever I'd notice myself being unkind to me. If the answer was no, it seemed to dissolve on its own. If the answer was yes, well, all that took to soften was a little time and self-forgiveness. Soon I discovered that little shift was rippling out into other areas of my life, including my relationships with others.
I'm telling you this now because I wish I'd have known earlier how much better it can be to enjoy things while we're doing them and not just racing to an imaginary finish line. I'm telling you now so you can begin as you mean to go on.
If you know me outside of these letters, you probably know that I have almost infinite capacity for patience for other people, but I promise you it didn't always come easily. Now that I practice patience with myself it comes very naturally to hold a big-hearted, patient approach with others.
Is sewing a practice of mindfulness? It can be.
Listen to the sound of the machine.
Run your hands over the texture of fabric.
Smell the candle you lit to get your sewing machine in the mood for tonight.
Taste the tea you brewed before you sat down to begin.
Paying attention to each part of a multi-sensory experience is by definition a mindfulness practice.
Here are some homework questions for you and your notebook:
Is sewing a practice of kindness? It can be. How do you plan to practice kindness with yourself as we get started?
Is sewing a practice of archetype embodiment? It can be. What a perfect practice for Virgo season. The Magician, the Alchemist, the Earth Goddexx. What other archetypes can you practice embodying by sewing?
How is making something yourself a practice of self-care?
Who are you when your pour yourself into your craft?
Additional posts in this series
