Many people believe in not starting anything new until you finish what you’ve already started. It’s a reasonable, logical, and adult approach to life. But it doesn’t seem to be mine.
I work on things for a while, and if they don’t finish quickly, I set them aside to do something else. It’s a challenging way to live, because I wind up with so many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) lying around, waiting patiently for my return.
When people complain about having twenty or thirty UFOs piled up, I laugh. My 2023 studio inventory uncovered seventy-six UFOs, and I missed some. My final count was nearly one hundred.
I’ve considered giving myself a “no starting something new” rule. I have enough started that I would be busy for the rest of my life. The only problem is I can’t. I find the beginning of a project the most exciting — having the idea, collecting the materials, seeing where things lead. I dislike the idea of never getting to do anything new.
Many of my ideas tend to be big, which is why I wind up with UFOs. I can lose interest if the project takes a long time (like my maple leaf quilt or my fairy tale miniature). More often, I get stuck. Something goes wrong or I need to make a decision, and I don’t know what to do (like struggling to figure out the background for my wallhanging).
Either way, I switch projects and let my subconscious stew on things while I’m actively doing something else. Because I have to keep making. (I’ve been trying to figure out why and really do not know. Does “it feels wrong not to be making something” qualify as a reason?)
Since my 2023 inventory, I have been striving to finish more things, especially neglected projects that got started over ten years ago. But my UFOs haven’t kept me from starting new things (like the bag I made from scratch earlier this year.) I’m just trying harder to push through and finish when I do start something new.
Is there some perfect balance to be achieved between starting and finishing projects? Maybe, but I have decided I don’t care. I’m going to keep listening to my heart and working on what interests me and see what happens.
It’s my way.
You’ve made some beautiful things, Kit. I think we all have started projects waiting to be picked up again. I agree that maybe we lose that momentum we had at the beginning of a project, but I’ve found that when I pick it up again, after a bit of talking to myself to keep going, the enthusiasm comes back and it’s fun to see the project come to completion. BTW, I love that scene of all the mattresses (The Princess and the Pea?)
I can’t imagine not trying to create something. It would be so boring to go through life not creating – whether it’s sewing, or some other form of art, or even something as mundane as cooking or baking.
Maybe you could set yourself a goal to choose one UFO and finish it before starting each new one. Just a thought….
I have friends who are very “one project at a time” and are quite good at finishing the old before starting something new, so it’s nice to hear that there are others like me! When I looked at my sewing table this morning, I realized I had five different in-progress quilt projects on it… and the only reason there weren’t six is because I moved one of them to a shelf to make room! It made me laugh, but it’s apparently who I am.
My 2026 “project of the month” has done a lot to help me finish up old projects. And I’m choosing to start smaller things when I do something new, so that I can finish it without taking a big break in the middle. I really don’t have room to store more UFOs.
I am constantly creating, too. I just can’t not.
Maybe I’ll do another UFO count and see if my total has decreased…