Craft Plans: The Unfinished Projects

This year, I have decided, is to be the Year of Unfinished Projects.

Mostly, these projects are cross-stitch projects from over the years, some just waiting on the back-stitching before I make them up into something. That is the usual point at which I decide it is basically done and I can justifiably move on and start another. But this year, I will complete them. I might even do something with them!

My cross-stitching has taken something of a back-seat for the last year, as I’ve focused first on the various blankets to crochet and then on the world of paper. I did start a major piece – a world map – which M gave me for Christmas 2018, but it’s been left on the frame for the last few months, largely untouched. I dread to think how curly the edges will be by the time I remove it. Most of my Unfinished Projects, though, are from several years ago, like the Paris scene above.

Of course, I also have lots of new projects in the works – ideas for papercrafting and new skills I want to develop (like drawing and quilling) – as well as the fact that every time I open my cross-stitch folders I rediscover patterns that I really must stitch at some point.

At the moment, I’m planning a seasonal project for mixed media, using all of my various crafting hobbies, to illustrate the changing seasons. It’s still at the planning stage, while I work out what I want from it, and what I need for it. Sometimes this is a little frustrating, because I like to start things, but I’ve found over the last six months or so that planning really is key to keeping going. I know – who’d’ve thought it?! It’s only taken me, oh, a decade or so of adulthood to work out. I expect it’s why all the previous incarnations of this blog have failed, due to a lack of sufficient, serious planning. I usually just got going and hoped for the best.

Actually, I find I quite enjoy the planning aspect, too. It gives me something to think about in my moments to myself, or when I’m particularly in need of my Happy Place. Last year, I started using a bullet journal to assist me in my planning, and I found it really useful, so I’m giving it another go this year, though with a much simpler layout.

What crafting plans have you for 2020?