Sometimes I feel like there is a lot of creating going on and not much to show for it. In reality, there has been a lot of starting but not a lot of finishing. Oh, how I used to hate it when I had a half-finished project hanging out. Lately it seems like the sewing pile is growing and the knitting basket is staying in its full state and I am happily enjoying the process of making as opposed to rushing to the final product to share.
The process of creating is so dear to me. Looking for inspiration high and low. Designing in my head (and sometimes on paper, too), and then spending minutes and hours of my life pouring love and warmth into projects is just so dear to me. In the midst of life and all of its craziness in graduate school I was so focused on creating that I did not enjoy the process nearly as much as I do now. I also didn't end up with half of the projects I used to complete. However, what I do finish now I love, love, love. No bags completed to live life in the closet. No shirts to pack into a box. Everything is loved and used and loved some more. I guess I am all about slow crafting these days.
So yes, I don't make as many quilts. No, I haven't sewn a shirt for myself in a year. Yes, my Easter skirt still needs a waist band. Yes, my summer clapotis is exactly where I left it when I returned home from Florida (ahem, in March). No, I don't know if any of my holiday gifts started will actually be finished for this year. But...I am loving each and every moment creating and that is what it is all about.
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13 notes:
Exactly right...that's what it's all about, enjoying the process!
Jess, you said it perfectly--that what you do finish, you love. That process and the feeling about the finished project are so important. To me, that is what is so beautiful about handmade, the meaning behind it all.
Applauding you on your sweet and honest words, Jessica! I feel the same way and YES I really do have lots and lots of unfinished projects. I am slowly getting there but why hurry? The projects I create with love and serenity are the only ones that will get done....eventually.
you create the best projects : )
There are so many things in my head that I want to make that sometimes I feel overwhelmed and therefore stuck...until I remember what Vicki Square wrote in an issue of Interweave Knits: "Whatever you do, refuse to make yourself a hostage to the undone...enjoy the creative flow of having many knitting projects going simultaneously, just as you enjoy a car ride without worrying about each individual moving part. Knit anything and everything you want - and enjoy the scenery!"
I feel the same way. Last week I worked on some sewing patterns I had been saving. I took the time to pin and iron along the way and the difference it make in the end is amazing. I also tend to rush my knitting and my sweaters end up just a little too short. I wont be doing that this year.
Beautiful pictures as always.
What a wonderful attitude! I love the little purple embroidered saying!
It is the slowly crafted items I am most proud of. They are the ones of greater detail, worked on in the little snippets of time I steal away.
I love your embroidered sentence.
Nicola
Exactly. Slow crafting is better than no crafting.
i JUST wrote about the very same thing! i have a ton of projects in the works just hanging around my craft zone...one quilt i started THREE YEARS AGO. omg. my goal this summer is to focus and finish these unfinished projects! :D
I love that photo of your knitting basket! Mine is starting to look the same way, too. There are lots of unfinished projects piling up around here these days. :)
It is the process that matters. So glad you are living this.
I love the "dreams become reality" embroidery. I am going to write that down and hang it up on my inspiration board, thanks for always inspiring me!
To answer your question, we are moving, out of our town :( but only 20 minutes away....I dream of someday having a fun knitting get together with the local bloggers, maybe at the lake?
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