How to Find Time for Embroidery and Other Creative Endeavors

We all have 24 hours in a day and a never-ending to-do list. So, how to find time for embroidery in a busy life and stay consistent with your practice?

I often get asked how I make time for stitching, but the fact is that you can’t make time. It’s a finite resource, and the only thing you can really do is manage your time wisely. You prioritize, save time by organizing, and subtract time from the less important activities.

Prioritize and schedule

Remember that hand embroidery is a way of self-care and prioritize accordingly. It is not a waste of time or a vain activity, but an active path to better mental health; therefore, finding time for hand embroidery or other manual creative crafts is finding time for yourself.

Prioritize hand embroidery as a habitual source of joy and relaxation. Then plan it and put it on your calendar.

You can plan for how much stitching time you would like each month. What projects would you like to stitch? What new techniques or methods would you like to learn and explore next? Take notes and put everything in your planner.

Resources for planning:

How to Improve Your Hand Embroidery Skills: Tips and Exercises. You will find plenty of tips on planning and organizing your stitching time in this blog post.
Visible Mending Knitwear: A Creative and Sustainable Approach. In this blog post, you will find tips on how to create your mending routine and incorporate it into your daily life. You can use the same approach to any hobby.
Embroidery Planner. It will help you keep track of the time you spend stitching, take notes on the embroidery stitches you used, and record the embroidery floss color codes used in the project.
Christmas gift-making planner. Free downloadable planner to plan and track your hand-embroidered Christmas gifts.

Embroidery Planner image — Embroidery planner

Christmas gift making planner image — Christmas gift making planner

Stitch two or more projects at a time

If you can’t find time for embroidery, taking on more projects may sound counterproductive, but hear me out.

Having hand embroidery projects of different difficulty or size going on at the same time will give you more possibilities to stitch. When you have a shorter time slot or less mental capacity to stitch something complex that is big in size or requires concentration and extra neatness, stitch something less demanding.

I often have one bigger, demanding project and a couple of easy ones going on at the same time. If I have time and capacity for a serious stitching session, I will stitch my complex project. But if I want to have a quick 15-minute stitching break, I will grab an easy one. For me, it might be some mending with Sashiko, or a slow, intuitive stitching piece.

I apply the same rule to knitting and sewing projects, too. I often have a basic knitting project, like washcloths, and a complex cardigan on my needles at the same time.

Sashiko Style Mending tutorial - red color to the stitching - image — Sashiko style mending

Even 10 minutes count

Small chunks of free time we have during the day can also serve as stitching time. Small break after lunch? Twenty minutes before you need to go somewhere? You can transform these small slots of free time into your stitching time.

Hand embroidery does not require preparing tools and materials, so you can grab it whenever you have a few minutes and make progress a few stitches at a time.

The simple embroidery projects mentioned above are convenient for the brief moments we can spare for our hobbies.

Incorporate hand embroidery into your daily activities

Use your waiting or commute time to stitch. 10-minute wait in a car while your kid gets out of school or finishes a sports activity? 15 minutes in the doctor’s waiting room? An hour of the train commute? All these still moments can become your precious embroidery time!

If you can’t find time to embroider, incorporate stitching into your daily activities. Watching TV shows, listening to podcasts, or listening to audiobooks are great opportunities to add more embroidery time to your daily schedule. Hand embroidery does not require decision-making or any mental labor; therefore, you can combine it with any other non-manual leisure activity.

Another great way to add stitching to your daily routine is to combine it with self-care practices like journaling or daily reflection. You can stitch a heat map, a mood tracker, or a daily journal with icons, or track any daily activity in your life. In the blog post “Embroidery as therapy: 8 ways hand embroidery can boost your mental health and emotional wellbeing,” you will find various examples of how to use hand embroidery for journaling and mindfulness.

Here are some patterns for journaling with stitches:

2026 Embroidery Journal Template PDF on Etsy

A Year of Tiny Leaves Pre Printed Embroidery Fabric for hand embroidery on Etsy

Mini Mindful Slow Stitch Kit – Shabby Chic Edition on Etsy

Organize space and supplies

Even if hand embroidery does not require complex tools and materials or special workplace preparation for stitching, well-organized tools and materials will help you overcome the initial barrier of making the first stitch. When you have to start your stitching session in chaos, looking for needles, threads, or scissors, it’s an obstacle to even getting started.

Dedicate some time to organizing your threads, needles, and other embroidery-related tools and materials. Also, after your stitching session, put everything back in its place. This will make the next stitching session more fun and pleasant.

If you like to stitch on the go – in the car, train, or while waiting, a well-equipped and convenient project bag will save you a lot of time and tangled threads.

Resources for organizing your supplies:

How to organize embroidery needles - storage ideas

Join a group or a stitch-along

Hand embroidery groups – online and in person – are an excellent motivator to find time for embroidery. Group projects, monthly embroidery patterns, and live stitching sessions are a wonderful opportunity to spend time with like-minded creatives. They can give you a boost of motivation to maintain a regular stitching practice.

In the blog post “Embroidery Resource Guide: Suppliers, Communities, and Online Platforms,” I share more information on hand embroidery communities & social media, including direct links to some of these groups.

Stitch-along projects are another great way to join the community of stitchers and get motivation to finish a project. These hand embroidery projects are divided into manageable chunks and are guided by the pattern creator; therefore, they are easier to finish and more fun to stitch with the group.

Eliminate guesswork

Sometimes sketching the design, choosing the thread colors, the number of thread strands, the fabric, or the pattern transfer method can look so complex that this overwhelm prevents us from even starting the project.

To eliminate this decision fatigue barrier, try hand embroidery kits or embroidery patterns with detailed instructions. These hand embroidery supplies will save you a ton of time and decision-making, and you can start stitching right away.

I know that choosing hand embroidery patterns or kits is another type of hobby and a time thief, so take a look at these pattern lists. I’ve vetted all the AI slop and shortlisted the best hand embroidery designs by theme and season, so you can choose from 10 or 20 designs on the list without scrolling through thousands on the web.

Blog posts with the lists of themed hand embroidery patterns:

Over to you

Don’t measure your time availability against others’. A working mom of three will never be able to dedicate as much time to stitching as a retired person with one cat. If someone can stitch for three hours a day and you only manage to find 30 minutes, it’s still 30 minutes more than before. Enjoy these precious moments and move forward at your own pace.

Eventually, the season will change, making it easier to find time for embroidery or any other hobby you decide to take on.