I tried out a great technique to speed up sewing.
Recently, I had to make a dress on a deadline. By which I mean, I left it til the last minute to make it! I had so little time that it barely seemed possible to finish the dress. But rather than give up, I used the pressure to try out a technique that would make my sewing more efficient: batching tasks. And it worked so well!
Batching your sewing tasks is such a time saver – and it doesn’t even involve cutting any corners. (Insert joke about trimming seam allowances here.) You’re not skipping any of the important steps – you’re just rearranging them.
Should you sew faster?
Don’t get me wrong! On most sewing projects, I like to take my time. I really advocate for sewing slowly and enjoying the journey. Plus, it’s not great for the planet to be making loads and loads of clothes quickly. Fast fashion is not a good thing.
But – sometimes you have a deadline, and you need to pull out all the stops to get your outfit made. And that’s where task batching comes in really handy.
What is task batching in sewing?
The principle of task batching is that you group together as many similar tasks as you can, and then do them all before moving on to the next type of task.
For instance, the pattern instructions may tell you to sew a seam, then finish it, then press it. This makes clear logical sense, and is a fine way to write instructions, particularly for beginners. But if you follow these steps in this order for every seam, then you’re constantly switching up your workspace to suit different tasks. This might mean physically getting up and walking around the room, moving your machines, or reconfiguring your machine settings.
For example, these are the different spaces I use:
- My cutting table where I pin
- My sewing machine
- My overlocker* (which shares a space with my sewing machine, so I physically move them to make room)
- My ironing board
Typically I have to use all of these spaces on a similar step. When you multiply that by the number of steps in a sewing patter, that’s a lot of time spent moving around or moving machines!
*If you don’t have an overlocker, then you’re probably changing the settings on your sewing machine between straight seams and edge finishing. And you’re trimming seam allowances too!
So what to do instead?
Your goal is to do as much of the same kind of task in one go as you can, before moving on to the next kind of task.
How do you do that?
- First, identify a batch of seams that can be sewn together.
- Pin all these seams.
- Move all your pinned pieces to the sewing machine and sew them all one after the other.
- Overlock all these seams.
- Press all these seams.
Now you’re ready to pick up the next batch of seams.
Obviously you can’t do all the seams in your project in one batch, because there are dependencies between them. For example, you probably want to finish your side and shoulder seams before you insert a sleeve. But you can probably batch together more seams than the pattern instructions suggest.
Top Tips for Batching your Sewing Tasks
Take time to save time.
Sit down for 5 minutes before you start sewing, and rewrite the pattern instructions into the order that makes sense. I usually reword them into a simple shorthand for myself at this stage.
This means there’s no need to stop and read full-length pattern instructions between each step. It’s great if you’re an experienced sewist who doesn’t need the step-by-step details for everything.
Identify independent seams.
It’s worth reading through to the end of the pattern and finding as many unrelated seams as possible. For instance, there may be a waist tie, collar, cuff or skirt that you can pin/sew/overlock at the same time as your shoulder seams.
(I like to think of this in terms of dependency trees, but then again, I am a software engineer…)
Batch up all kinds of pressing tasks – not just seams.
Look ahead for any pressing tasks that can be brought forward into the first batch. Waistbands, neckbands or ties can be pressed in half before the time comes to sew them.
It can also be nice to press hems before sewing the pieces – particularly on sleeves, which become more fiddly to press after they’ve been sewn into the garment.
Consider the changes to settings on your machine.
Batch up steps that involve changing the settings on your machine. Gathering stitches, bar tacks, topstitching in a contrasting thread colour, and rolled hems – these all involve faffing around with your setup.
Plus if you batch them all together, that also minimises the number of times you can forget to put the settings back afterwards!
And that’s it.
I hope you enjoy using this technique. Enjoy your speedier sewing!