I've recently been motivated to start sewing again, a hobby which took a serious down turn correlating with kid1's mommy-time-intensive first year. It's hard to know how to pick up a project you've let go for awhile.
Sometimes the results are good. I recently moved my sewing machine downstairs so I could sew when kid1 naps and sleep. Clothing repairs got tackled first. I thought there was monster pile that would take hours to fix but, once I got started, I was done with everything except replacing buttons in 30 minutes. Now I have an almost-new pair of PJ pants, a sweater, and 4 shirts! It was great to actually finish something (feeding the family and dishes and laundry and cleaning house don't count... they always need to be done again!).
Sometimes, the results are ambivalent. In the same sewing spree, I finished piecing together the rows for kid1's quilt. Now, the pieces are in the right order because I pinned them all at the same time. And the rows are in the right order (I think...). But are they turned right? I have no idea which way I was folding them months ago and which side is left or right. So while I've definitely made progress, I have some more work to do to really get going with this project.
*Note: This is a great example of why it's important to document your long term projects with things like, I dunno, pictures and diagrams. Whoops.*
And sometimes, picking up a project in the middle is just a no-go. The memory game I'm working on was this way. After the quilt, I tried to move ahead with sewing the patterned fabric into the felt frames, only to discover the reason I stopped months ago: no matching thread.
I'm happy to report that one trip to Hobby Lobby later, that part of the project is finished. Now, of course, comes the part I hate: ironing seams and interfacing. Can I outsource this somewhere? ;-)
Do you have lapsed projects that you're having difficulty re-starting? How do you get going again?
i have probably about a dozen lapsed projects sitting in our guest room (my sewing room) right now. unfortunately, my sewing area will likely be downsized before my projects get finished due to working full time and taking care of a certain kiddo while a certain hubby also works full time while taking night classes.
ReplyDeleteand yes, they can be VERY hard to restart.
*sigh, the list of things i WANT to do so rarely matches or even compromises well with the things that i MUST do.