Completion

Oh Completion, we have such a long and tumultuous relationship. I'm sure it must be around 5 years now since I made completion a conscious part of my creation process. I just got fed up with all of the unfinished projects clogging up my shelves, baskets, and drawers. The half-finished projects would take on all forms: half-finished knitted scarves, half-finished scrapbooks, half-finished paintings, on and on. These projects left for dead were a waste of materials and time. But most of all, they weighed on my creative voice. It was as if every unfinished project was whispering, "You are no good at this creative thing...you can't even finish this simple knitted scarf." Clearly, the absence of completion was weighing on my creative self esteem.

That's when I made the commitment to finish each quilt project I start. It's not easy. There are so many places in the quilting process where I could not move onto the next step and stuff the scraps into a drawer.
Sometimes I really have to push myself  to pull out a project that I have become bored with. Sometimes I fall out of love with the fabric or get tired of the tediousness of a design. But I try to remember the commitment I made to completing my projects. Usually I mentally compare how it would feel to finish a quilt project versus leaving it half-finished. Under which scenario will my creative self esteem thrive? Certainly the former.

Currently, I have 5 unfinished quilt tops which sit, good grief, stuffed into drawers. As soon as I feel confident using my machine to quilt the tops, they will be pulled one by one from the drawers and completed.

I guess once I committed to completing my quilts, I simultaneous committed to nurturing my creative voice. Now my creative voice says, "I can finish this, I can." And more importantly, "When I finish this, it will be bitchin!"