Monday, January 29, 2024

I'm Projecting Projects

quilting cotton quarters and halves
The sun is shining and I am ready to Project, Project, Project! That is project, the noun: "an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim", and not project, the verb:  "plan (a project or undertaking)." (from Oxford Language). Unfortunately my definition of project the noun is rarely "carefully planned", and due to my short attention span is often not completed. I go hard for a few days, maybe an intense week, and then--just as I approach the finish line--another shiny object/project pops up and I go haring off after it. Sigh.

I need to finish Dave's bison coat by putting on the closures--though it is now way too warm for him to wear. The sewing part of the sewing room is finished, now I need to unpack the office part, but there isn't any more room, and I don't want to...

Thread--regular, serger, embroidery
I have been itching to start unpacking and putting away the tools in the garage. The glass shed needs to be set up (shelving and work surface installed, and all frit and glass unpacked), and I haven't finished unpacking the basement yet. I got as far as books on shelves, a loveseat in front of the fireplace, and games in the games cabinet, and then I petered out. 

I still haven't fixed the broken leg of the games table so it is upside down in the middle of the rec room, and the live-edge desk I was making for Austin doesn't fit anywhere and is taking up the space where the loveseat needs to go. Never mind that little room down there that will be the jewelry studio: it's inundated with all the yarn and fiber that didn't go into the attic--including the Ikea cloth cubes (all 50 of them) that go into the two Kallax wall units that are still at our other Polson house because they don't fit anywhere in the new one! I need a fiber barn to get that all sorted out. 

Shirt and clothing fabric
Over the past few days I folded and organized every piece of fabric I have. I found five of Dave's shirts in progress and mostly sewn, and four more cut out and ready to sew. I also tidily arranged fabric for another 177 shirts. I didn't even count all the quarter and halves of quilting fabric. A friend's dress surfaced (I am replacing a zipper on it for her), as did the partially-pieced Crown Royal quilt that I am making for another friend. Oh, and the infamous sunbonnet girls quilt that I started with my grandmother over 50 years ago... I think that one wins for the oldest in-progress project. I'm actually kind of glad that I haven't started organizing the yarn cubes yet as they contain many, many in-progress sweaters--including five baby ones that I started and didn't complete for Jessie--now 22.

But that's what retirement is for, right? Completion of old projects and starting all the ones I squirreled away for this very day. But there are baby chicks coming to Murdoch's soon (they have the enclosure set up in the middle of the store), and I don't have a chicken coop yet. It's about time to start seeds for the garden, and I haven't cleaned out the greenhouse yet. How do I choose what to do, and how do I motivate myself to finish what I've already started?

Good thing I put up a whiteboard and bought some new dry erase markers. Think I'll go noodle a bit on my board and calendar.

2 comments:

Bill said...

Behold, the human tornado, such power, cleansing in a swath...and leaving the chaos behind!

Prioritizing projects makes sense to me, but might not be a skill that you have. I could be wrong.

The greenhouse and chicken coop sound like priorities to me, but my opinion would likely fall apart by the realities of your hideaway...

Bill said...

See! I was wrong about the chicken coop and the greenhouse...