Let's finish the unfinished business!
As an avid quilter, you may have some unfinished quilting work to do. Perhaps the available time or suitable fabrics have run out, some patchwork has started to feel numb, or new and new projects have been started, leaving work unfinished.
Maybe we could decide as a New Year's resolution to finish our unfinished work! We could follow our progress with photos on Instagram with the tag #letsfinishufos2021.
Tips for finishing
Get organized and set goals
The first step in getting the situation under control is getting organized.
- Make a list - How many quilts do you have in progress? One way is to try the KonMari method of organizing - pile up unfinished work in one place so you can look at it all at once.
- Decide which quilts would make the most sense to complete. Arrange these jobs in the finish queue.
- Keep your patchwork visible! - It is too easy to buy new fabric and measure new patchwork if the unfinished work is hidden on shelves and in boxes. If you don't see them, you risk falling into the "out of sight, out of mind" thread. Writing down unfinished jobs helps you remember these jobs in hiding places as well.
- Be serious about completing unfinished work - no new work. Focus your energy only on finishing the unfinished ones!
- Calculate the remaining time to complete a task. This is a bit tricky, but it would be fruitful to get into this way. If there are a lot of similar blocks to be made, do one of them without rushing first and count the time spent on it. Now you have a solid time estimate for the other blocks. If it takes 30 minutes to make one piece, you can schedule it in the evening or first thing in the morning. Aim for one block per day for a week. Now you can estimate how many blocks you have done in a week and correspondingly in a month. This kind of time estimation can suddenly turn a huge project into something manageable and quickly completed!
Use the buddy system
With the buddy system, almost all patchwork progresses smoothly. One plus one most of the time is more than two, there is synergy brought by the group. Meeting face-to-face is difficult in the current corona situation, but with the help of Instagram tags we can share information about our situation and progress with each other.
Reward yourself
Reward yourself with small prizes for the quilting you complete: perhaps a beautiful bundle of FQ from your local fabric store, takeout from your favorite restaurant, or fresh flowers. Waiting for the reward can help you finish the next unfinished job, even if you don't want to work on it otherwise. You might even tell yourself that you can't start another patch until you finish the next one in progress.
Download the FREE tracking templates below: