Declutter Challenge 2022 - Day 15 - UFOs
Welcome to Week Three, Day 15 of the sewing space declutter challenge. This week is all about your projects, fabric and batting.
Today our challenge is to find all the projects that you have started. It doesn’t matter if you call them WIP’s (Works In Progress) or UFO’s (UnFinished Objects), let's get them all out in the light of day. And when I say started, that means that there is some cut fabric, half sewn blocks, or partially constructed rows.
Any fabric that you find that you have pulled and not cut, we’ll classify as a kit. Just put those aside and we will be dealing with kits tomorrow.
Normally, for me, I classify anything that I have not worked on for three months as a UFO and the current projects as WIP’s. But since we are at the beginning of a new year, I’m dumping almost everything into the UFO pile.
We stop projects for many reasons. Like all marathons, once you stop it’s mentally challenging to get back on track. But here is the million-dollar question...
If you had a day of uninterrupted sewing, is this a project that you want to finish?
Sometimes it’s a high five YES, sometimes it’s an absolute NO. Unfortunately, the majority fall into a murky MAYBE. We get so focused on the amount the fabric, the pattern, the time we have invested so far, we forget to look at the future. If our sewing room is supposed to be a place where we find solace and recharge ourselves, why would we invest more time on a project that depletes us even more?
I have made a video on UFOs to help you decide on what UFOs are worth finishing and some techniques to stop and simply use what you have. I’ll put a link here if you have yet to watch it.
For those that you do want to finish, make a list. We’ll call this the Long List which is every single UFO that you have found in your stash. You can keep it in your bullet journal, a sheet of paper, a whiteboard, whatever works best for you.
And from this make a Short List. This is the 3-5 UFOs that you are going to finish first. You might choose the fast finishes, or the most urgent or your favourites. The choice is yours. But this is the list you will keep front and centre in your head going forward. And when these are done, you can pull 3-5 more from your stash. And so on.
Honestly, this is a day that I have been waiting for. By the end of 2021, I had several projects that had been dumped in a heap and I had no space to bring them out and get reorganized on them. I have identified two that I want to get off the list this week. Two baby quilts need borders and one that needs binding. Nothing like some fast finishes to bring your SewJo back.
See you tomorrow for Day 16 - Kits!