Summer WIP It: Prioritizing your quilts

If you want to join us for my Summer WIP It Challenge, you can do that HERE.

First, what’s a WIP. It stands for Work In Progress. These are the quilts you started but haven’t finished yet. I tend to not think of them as WIPs until I’ve stopped working on them and moved onto something else before it was finished, but you can think of them however you want.

For this Summer WIP It challenge, we want to get 3 quilts out of the WIP pile and into the snuggle rotation. So, let’s talk about priorities. What are the excuses we have for NOT finishing those quilts?Are there some strategies we can use to bust the excuses and get those quilts finished?

Well quilters, I hate to say it but that was ALL a bunch of click bait! I am NOT going to tell you that you should put your quilts higher on your priority list than spending time with your family or taking care of the things you have to do like earn a living and all of your other responsibilities. I am also NOT going to shame you for that quilt that sat in the WIP pile for months or even years. AND you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it either! Whatever reasons you had for not finishing it right away, don’t think of them as excuses. Think of them as priorities. YES, time with your family WAS more important than finishing that project. YES, you DID need that mental break. YES, life happens and sometimes projects get set aside for as long as they need to be. YES, that project WAS stressful, and you NEEDED to move on to something else for a little while. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Quilting is supposed to be fun, and if a project is stressing you out, it is OK to do something else for a little while or a long while if that’s what you need. I say all of this for myself just as much as I do for you. I still feel like at least 2 of my unfinished quilts have been giving me the stink from the WIP pile for a while now. So, I definitely feel your pain as far the WIP guilt goes, but I need to get over that and so do you. Who knows, maybe I need to let that stress go before I feel ready to work on those projects again.

So, yes this challenge is about finishing 3 WIPs, but it could also be about finishing more or less WIPs or even just getting the FREE WIP Tracker document I’m sending out to everyone who signs up. Unless you’re making this for someone or some company who’s paying you, do you really have a deadline for the quilt? Let’s not stress ourselves out. Let’s enjoy quilting. I’d love for you to finish 3 WIPs with me, but at the same time I don’t want to be a source of stress. You know what you need to do. So, whatever that is, do that. You can check out the WIP tracker and the schedule for our Summer WIP it Challenge below.

Ok, now that all that is said, I would like to do some posts during this challenge about some of the steps in making a quilt. Is there a step that’s hard for you that you would like me to do a post on? Confession: my first solo project sat unquilted for months because I was afraid to quilt it, mostly afraid I would mess it up. I definitely messed it up, but nothing bad happened because of it. The machine I quilted it on did not explode. The quilt police did not show up at my door. That quilt and all it’s hot mess glory is actually on my bed. So, the only thing I would say as far as actual advice for overcoming “excuses” would be that you shouldn’t let being afraid of messing up the quilt stop you. The only time this should be a factor would be if you were making a t-shirt quilt with someone else’s precious shirts/memories. In that case, I’d probably recommend practicing on some of your own old shirts before you try to cut into someone else’s. You only get one shot with those. You should also avoid trying to finish someone else’s old quilt tops that have been in their family for years if you aren’t comfortable with your skills yet.

Another little bit of actual advice for being motivated to make something

When I first started quilting, I didn’t start a new project until I was finished with the current project. I just didn’t do this. Somehow along the way, I threw this “rule” out the window. Part of this was because I started taking on custom orders. I felt like someone who was paying me deserved to be placed on top of the list. This is completely understandable but also a little problematic. Let me explain…

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking on commissioned orders. I know there are people out there who look down on charging for quilts and give the excuse that “you won’t enjoy it anymore once it’s a job”. While that may be true for some people, there are quilters out there who sell dozens of quilts every year and still manage to love quilting. Ask me how I know… So, telling people they won’t enjoy it anymore because it’s a job is really just another one of those discouraging things you really should just keep to yourself. This is one of those things that ends up being true for some quilters but not for others.

So, for the sake of argument, lets just say you decide you have to impart this little nugget of “wisdom” onto someone who is thinking of selling some quilts. Maybe they ignore you and try it anyway. Maybe they do get burned out, but have they really hurt you? Now you get to feel superior for being “right”, but I’d probably keep the “I told you so” to yourself. What if they go the other direction and never try selling their quilts because some well-meaning “friend” told them it was a bad idea. Then they’ll never know if they would have been able to make that work. Never knowing and always wondering leads to regret, and who needs more of that? If you try to sell your quilts and “fail” then at least you have some pretty quilts. So, I suppose that’s not even an actual “fail”. OR, it may be a success, and there’s one more person out there getting to enjoy doing something they love for income.

Ok, so off of that tangent now and onto my point about how always prioritizing paid orders can be problematic… Always making stuff with colors/prints/patterns someone else picks means you aren’t making stuff with YOUR colors, prints YOU picked, or a pattern YOU wanted to make. This can wear you down if you let it. We all lose our sewjo from time to time, and taking a week or so every now and then to work on whatever you want to/whenever you want to is a great way to get it back!

That’s all I’ve got for today

That’s all I have for you today. Next week I’ll show you the WIP I chose for my first finish during this challenge and talk a little bit about it. As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog!

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment or email me. I’d love to hear from you!

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Happy quilting!