A Day in my Lockdown Life

Many of you might be wondering what a Dressmaking Tutor does when all face to face contact with students has to be paused due to a worldwide pandemic. You might assume that I’ve got heaps of time to sew and that I’m creating a wonderful wardrobe of amazing new clothes, with nowhere to wear them!

I hoped that would be the case and when lockdown first started I did find a bit of sewing time but now I’ve adjusted to working from home and bringing you the best learning to sew content online through my Membership Club and still helping you to be a better dressmaker.

Now things have settled into a steadier rhythm, I thought I’d share with you a day in my lockdown life.

7.30ish

Wake up naturally without an alarm (this has definitely been one of the joys of lockdown – no alarms)!

8-8.30am

Head out for a run or do some yoga on YouTube. I followed the BBC Couch to 5k app, but now that I’ve completed that I try to run/jog/shuffle for 30+ minutes 3 times a week.

9-10am

Fresh breakfast smoothie (sometimes even with greens from our garden), shower and dress ready to face the day.

10am

I aim to be sat at my makeshift desk (one of my studio sewing tables, that gets put up and taken down daily in our living room) with the laptop on by 10am. I’ll respond to any emails or messages that came in overnight and then parcel up any orders for patterns etc and take a walk down to the post box so I don’t miss collection from the local post box.

I’ll spend a bit of time on Facebook, seeing what’s been going on in the world, and giving advice and commenting in various sewing groups.

One to one zoom calls with students as booked in the diary throughout the day.

Planning and scheduling social media posts.

Blogging – planning and making sure that I’ve got photos to illustrate them.

Photographing and creating any imagery required.

1pm

Lunch – with Gary as he’s working from home too. Outside in the garden if the weather’s nice, recently it’s been cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels, but fish finger sandwiches and salads have also been popular with us during lockdown.

1.45pm

Back at the desk – I’m more creative in the afternoon and evening so this is usually when I film and edit videos or write blogs and newsletters and create additional content for the Membership Club.

Afternoons is when I fit in a bit of time working on designing and drafting my pattern range although this has been on the back burner since I started the Membership Club.

6-6.30pm

A few evenings each week I have a Zoom meeting or Facebook Live video to stay in touch with students and try to encourage community.

6.30-7.30pm

Usually a time for me tweaking and fiddling about with things I’ve done earlier in the day. I’m a recovering perfectionist and to get things out there in the world can sometimes need me to set (self imposed) deadline and realise that done is better than perfect!

7.30-8pm

Dinner: Gary does the cooking in our house as he enjoys it and I’m not very good in the kitchen. We’ll often have something from one of the Pinch of Nom recipe books. A favourite is the Creamy Garlic Chicken.

8-10.30pm

Relaxing, reading, some Netflix or Amazon Prime and then bed. We’ve been listening to sleep stories from the Calm app to help drift off to sleep as at various times throughout lockdown we have both struggled to switch off and get to sleep quickly.

Alison xx