In 2020, I started making an Advent calendar I’d been dreaming about for years. I would embroider an ornament for each day to be hung on a quilted Christmas tree. While I haven’t forgotten about it, I haven’t made much progress, either.*
This often happens with my creative projects. I get excited by the vision and start on the part that’s the most interesting in the moment, like embroidering on felt. I’ll think “I need at least 25 ornaments for my calendar,” and make nine in a month or so.
And then I’ll come across a pair of unfinished slippers I’d forgotten about in my studio and realize how close they are to being done. The next thing I know, I’m knitting slippers and the Advent calendar is the new forgotten thing.
Many of my projects are cyclical in this way. I come back to them over and over again, sometimes after a really long break. Earlier this fall, I actually remembered that I wanted to be making things for Christmas, so I got out my basket of ornament making materials.
I may never make the Advent calendar I was dreaming of, but since the ornaments can go on our tree, I keep stitching.
Do you ever forget about the project you are working on because you get distracted by another one?
*I have made more ornaments than I thought. Apparently I forgot to post about them at the time, so I don’t remember when I made these. Was it spring of 2021? Or have I been embroidering every December? I haven’t got a clue! Here are all the ornaments I made sometime between January 2021 and October 2024 (a total of ten!):
You could post one every second or third day. They look so unique and pretty.
Maybe in January? December’s kind of out of control….
Your ornaments are lovely!! Is that basket enough to fill your tree? If not, I vote for more ornaments over the Advent Calendar. Just because I think you and your family might get more pleasure from a delightfully whimsically decorated tree. (IMHO)
The old saying about being unable to walk and chew gum simultaneously comes to mind. I find it really difficult and tend to get absurdly flustered when I’m trying to do more than one thing. Hence, while working on my current book, I’ve written about three blog posts per year. Yes, you saw that correctly, 3 per year. Shameful! And now, I’ve added the idea of writing short pieces for publication to be able to show agents or publishers that I’ve got more than one self-published book to my name. But I have to talk myself down from overwhelm regularly! (How in the world did I ever have a full-time job and take care of a highly sensitive and then ailing husband and all the daily round of things to do? I can’t imagine it!)
Embroider on!
Thank you! They will definitely get used as ornaments somewhere, on the tree if not on a calendar. And I will embroider more, right after I finish making this Christmas present and get my T. rex’s Christmas costume finished. Because I always have a million things going at once, apparently. 😉 It is hard to juggle lots of things but we can do it if we have to.