Resolutions are important, but remember to be mindful in what you are doing. Be present in everything you do. Love what you are doing and only do what you love.
Many quilters promise to finish our projects each year, or maybe to learn a new skill or technique and of course we always strive to find more time to sew.
We all make these resolutions with good intentions, but our everyday life seems to get in the way of our intentions. So how do we do it?
- Be honest: do you really want to complete that project? Maybe you no longer really like it, then get rid of it. Donate it and don’t feel guilty about it. If you don’t love it, you don’t have to force yourself to finish it. Cut it up, change it, donate it or discard it.
- Do not purchase anything new patterns or fabrics until you finish at least one project. This can be quite tricky for some of us
- If you don’t love it, don’t start it – everyone might be jumping on the bandwagon but there will be more patterns coming some of which you will enjoy more
- Unless you quilt for a job, quantity does not matter
- Don’t start it if you are not ready. Just take you time, there is plenty of it. Otherwise you will end up with a pile of half cut up, half sew quilts that are hard to keep track of
- Quilt with friends. You will find the motivation to work on a project if others are also interested in what you are doing and your progress.
- Multi-task – watch TV/movies while hand stitching; listen to a podcast while sewing with the machine. Multi-tasking can make you feel like you are achieving more
- Celebrate and reward yourself when you finish a quilt
May I suggest that you start the year by going through all of your cupboards and storage and find all your partially commenced projects. Make a list of what you have and where they are at. I start each month in my quilt planner with a list of my current projects and what needs to be done to be completed. Divide each of your projects into some sort of container to keep track of everything you need for that project.
This gives you an idea of how many projects you have on the go. Eventually, you will work out what is a comfortable number for you to work on a one time, without being overwhelmed.
It also keeps all the information in one place if you need to make any purchases to finish off anything. You can hit the shops and buy all your threads at the same time for example. Then you can have all the threads in their separate project cases.
You can also make notes in the same place of projects that you are wanting to do or inspirations. This allows you to have the next project thought process starting for when you have finished one. I love my project planner, it helps to keep me organised. Plus, I love how it allows me to keep lots of my creative thoughts all in one place.
