Oopsie You Blink and Almost Two Years Go By: Picking Up Where We Left Off
-peeps around the corner- Well, hello again!
You blink, make a cup of tea, start seventeen other things and somehow almost two years go by since your last blog post. Oops. I could probably give you a very long list of reasons why All Things Stitchy quietly disappeared into the cupboard for a while. Life got busy. The shop got busy. I got married. We moved into a bigger shop TWO WEEKS later. Things changed. I got distracted. There were probably quilts involved, but actually, I think that makes this the perfect thing to talk about for our first blog back.
When do you pick something up again… And when do you just let it go?
Quilters are VERY good at starting things. We see a pattern. We fall in love. We absolutely NEED to make it. We choose the fabric, cut everything out, sew enthusiastically for three days, and then suddenly another shiny project walks past, and our beautiful new quilt gets folded up and placed in "The Cupboard".
You know the cupboard.
The one containing projects from several different eras of your personality and sometimes we feel terribly guilty about those unfinished projects. We should finish them. We bought the fabric. We spent the money. We already did all that cutting. We were so excited about it once BUT here’s the thing.
Your hobby is not supposed to become another job.
Quilting, sewing, embroidery, crochet, painting, whatever makes your creative little heart happy, is supposed to be somewhere you can escape to. It’s where we go when work has been ridiculous. It’s where we go when family life feels like a circus with no ringmaster. It’s where we find our people, sit around a table, drink tea, laugh far too loudly, and somehow solve half the world’s problems while sewing a quarter-inch seam. It’s our safe space. So if you pull an old project out of the cupboard and suddenly think, "Actually I really want to finish this" then DO IT.
Forget how long it has been sitting there. Forget that you “should have finished it ages ago.” No Quilting Police are coming to check the date on your unfinished project. Pick it up. Fall in love with it again. Change the border. Add something completely different. Turn the twelve blocks you finished into a smaller quilt instead of making the twenty-four you originally planned. It’s yours. You’re allowed to change the rules.
On the flip side though...
If you pull that project out and immediately feel your soul leave your body? Maybe it’s time to let it go. Give the fabric to someone who will love it. Turn the blocks into cushions. Donate it. Chop it up. Repurpose it. Hand it to your quilting friend who has been eyeing it for three years.
You are allowed.
Not everything we start has to become something we finish. Sometimes a project belonged to a version of you from five years ago. She loved those colours. She loved that pattern. She was convinced she wanted to hand appliqué 847 tiny leaves. Current "You" may have some questions about her decision-making and THAT'S OKAY. Maybe the real trick is learning the difference between “I don’t want this anymore" and “I’ve just lost my sewjo”. One deserves permission to leave. The other might need a cup of tea, a good playlist, a sewing friend, and one afternoon of attention.
Which, now that I think about it, is probably exactly what happened with this blog. I didn’t stop loving it. I just put it in the cupboard for a while, now I’m ready to take it back out.
So here’s to more All Things Stitchy. More quilting. More chatting. More ideas. More half-finished projects. More cups of tea going cold next to the sewing machine.
Here’s to that project hiding in your cupboard.
Maybe this is your sign to pull it out and give it another chance or maybe this is your official permission slip to get rid of the darn thing. Either way, make some space for something that makes you happy.
At the end of the day, that’s what this whole stitchy thing is supposed to be about.
Until next time lovelies (and hopefully not in another two years!).
Love in Stitches
A Pin Cushion Gal
xx