Eulogy for the unfinished project
How long do you let projects sit on your table before you finally dump them?
I don't mean projects that must be done like paying the bills or work projects that someone will call you out ont. I mean projects like: that recipe I want to make but it takes so long, or the half primed piece of furniture, or the scrapbook that your children (and technology) have already outgrown.
I have pieces of a shirt for myself that has been sitting on my sewing table for over a year. I deconstructed another (too small) shirt to make this one but then I ran out of fabric for the neck and decided to use a coordinating fabric. Which I never cut; thus I have been hanging onto the original neck of the original shirt since then.
I have pattern pieces, I have the fabric cut and I just don't care. Except that I started it and it seems so wasteful to throw away. Or, moreover, I feel like it is a failure to just stop without even attempting to finish and being disappointed with the results.
So I've decided to kill this project. I'm going to let it die. Send it to the scrap bin and let it be. My reasons?
The fabric was from goodwill, so not expensive
and I don't even like it anymore.
It has been the source of my pile up of crap on the sewing table which resides in our dining room.
Eyesore needs to be eased.
I can repurpose the bigger pieces into a pants or a hoodie for Junia or Deuce (nickname for baby 2).
I remember deconstructing the other shirt, drawing out the patterns from that and then cutting this fabric and thinking, "I need to remember exactly how this was put together." But that's the only memory I have of it.
I'm trying be be mindful of ways to simplify our lives which means letting things go. This feels somehow connected to that.
And so, as a person who always has 7 or 35 different creative projects in the works it is time to bring that number down by one. Kind of a failure. Kind of a blow-out. Kind of a purgatory good-bye. Mostly, a relief.
I don't mean projects that must be done like paying the bills or work projects that someone will call you out ont. I mean projects like: that recipe I want to make but it takes so long, or the half primed piece of furniture, or the scrapbook that your children (and technology) have already outgrown.
I have pieces of a shirt for myself that has been sitting on my sewing table for over a year. I deconstructed another (too small) shirt to make this one but then I ran out of fabric for the neck and decided to use a coordinating fabric. Which I never cut; thus I have been hanging onto the original neck of the original shirt since then.
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| Seriously, do you see how bad the camera is working! Grr. |
So I've decided to kill this project. I'm going to let it die. Send it to the scrap bin and let it be. My reasons?
The fabric was from goodwill, so not expensive
and I don't even like it anymore.
It has been the source of my pile up of crap on the sewing table which resides in our dining room.
Eyesore needs to be eased.
I can repurpose the bigger pieces into a pants or a hoodie for Junia or Deuce (nickname for baby 2).
I remember deconstructing the other shirt, drawing out the patterns from that and then cutting this fabric and thinking, "I need to remember exactly how this was put together." But that's the only memory I have of it.
I'm trying be be mindful of ways to simplify our lives which means letting things go. This feels somehow connected to that.
And so, as a person who always has 7 or 35 different creative projects in the works it is time to bring that number down by one. Kind of a failure. Kind of a blow-out. Kind of a purgatory good-bye. Mostly, a relief.
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