What’s your resolution for the New Year? How about making a resolution to finish up all of your sewing/quilting works in progress? It’ll set you up for an organized new year and it’ll take away any sort of anxiety you feel about unfinished projects piling up.
To begin tackling your WIPs, you must first gather all of them and get them in the same place. Make a list of what you all have, and try to figure out why you didn’t complete them in the first place. Maybe every time you look at the project, you realize you hate it. Maybe it’s no longer your style. Maybe you have blocks from a block of the month that you just can’t get yourself to finish sewing together. Perhaps you don’t feel like you have the skills to complete the project in the fashion you think it deserves. Or, maybe you just ran out of time and didn’t quite finish it and you also didn’t take the time to go back to it. Categorize the projects into four piles:
- Toss it
- Finish it
- Donate it
- Pay someone to finish it
Now that you’ve categorized your projects and gotten rid of the ones that you have no plans of finishing, it’s time to make a plan of attack. Organize the projects you intend to finish. Put each one in its own bag or box with all of the supplies needed to complete it. If it helps motivate you, press all of the fabric to make it look fresh. Decide the order in which you’ll complete the projects and impose deadlines on each of them. Start with the project that excites you most. It’ll help bring back your motivation. Stack your project right next to the sewing machine, ready to go. It’ll constantly be in your face that way, begging you to finish it. Then, all you have to do is sit down and start. Get it done.
If you’re still really struggling to complete a project, consider journaling about it to hopefully get to the heart of the issue and find out what’s holding you back. You might be struggling to gather the mental energy to finish. Free up your artistic energy by finishing up old projects so you can be creative for new projects.
