Monday Motivation: Day One or One Day?

Do your quilting projects sometimes feel overwhelming? Maybe you have too many UFOs or too much stash fabric or your current project requires thousands of half-square triangles. No matter what project you’ve been putting off, today is the day to start. You might be saying to yourself, “One of these days I will get around to sorting that scrap bin,” while every day you walk into your sewing room and see that overflowing bin.

Every time you see that bin, you have guilt that you haven’t done anything about it. After a while, that scrap bin starts robbing you of your joy. It’s no longer fun to go into your sewing room. As you work on another project, those scraps become the elephant in the room–what you should be working on. You may even avoid your sewing room altogether because it gets too depressing to see that same task waiting day after day.

Believe me, I am the queen of procrastination. I stay busy all day every day, but I’m not productive every day. Some days I just can’t face dealing with a particular project and I will find lots of other busy work to fill my time. I am getting better though and have reached the point in my life where I have to deal with all the UFOs, fabric, and other stuff in my sewing room.

Here are a few tips I use to motivate myself:

Set a timer. Sometimes I will spend 15 minutes doing what I’ve put off before doing what I want to do.
Set a reward. For example, you could reward yourself with a new pattern or fabric AFTER you finish a UFO.
Pick a day to ONLY work on the project you’ve been putting off. Dedicate some serious time to the project and see if you can’t finish it and move on to the next thing on your list.
Set a deadline. If you are making a quilt for a baby gift or wedding, chances are you will find a way to finish it before the big day. Do the same thing with your own project. Set a deadline and pace your progress so you meet that date.
Let someone else deal with it. Donate, sell, or give the project away. Maybe you just don’t have enough interest to put more time into the project. Bless someone else with it and be finished!

It seems like I have a million “Day One or One Day” quilting projects. This week I am going to focus on one; cutting this bag of batik scraps. I plan to use them for a pineapple quilt. It is a time-consuming project but one I really want to do.

Cutting these scraps was an item on last week’s list that did not get finished. How did I do on the other things?

Finish blue floral UFO
~~Binding-Rectangle Wrangle~~
~~Quilt tumbler top~~
~~Piece Violet top~~
~~Piece Blooming Bunch top~~
Cut batik pineapple

I am very happy with that progress. The blue floral UFO is almost finished. Just have about half the binding to hand stitch and it will be done-done!

I am volunteering at the county COVID Vaccine Center so will have a lot less sewing time in the next few weeks. I’m still going to set high goals for next week and we’ll see how it goes.

Sewing Goals Week of March 1: