When you plan a project it’s all excitement. Figuring out what you want it to be. The thrill of itching to get started. And ideally, your project will be that. Fun, exciting and wonderful from start to finish.
Except, sometimes it’s not.
Some projects don’t work out quite as you imagined them. In truth, it’s probably a bit like this for every project, nothing ever works out exactly as you thought.
But sometimes the shine goes away right from the start. It’s just not what you imagined. The material might not be what you thought; the pattern doesn’t look as exciting on the loom. Or things are just a lot messier than you ever imagined.
Once off the loom, most of these projects end up on what I call the limbo pile. “I’ll finish it sometime,” you say to yourself. Except, most of the time you don’t. Things sit in a corner, gathering dust, without getting a second look.
Well, recently I pulled out one of these forgotten projects. My initial motivation was to test the sewing machine, as I had run into trouble recently. (Later, on another project, I discovered I needed to change the needle.)
I had a set of reversible bags sitting around, that still needed the bottom closed and the rim sewn. I had initially started these for my kid to use at school for spare clothes and the like. But the material had been so fiddly that getting the warp on the loom was a nightmare, and weaving took a lot longer than anticipated.
Of course, I should have figured that in, as weaving in four layers obviously takes time, but apparently that fact wasn’t obvious enough.
I also ran into some trouble that caused the layers to stick together in places. I knew those weren’t fixable, which made the project even less exciting.
By the time I finally had these off the loom, I had found something else for my kid, so the bags went onto the limbo pile.
But since these pieces were already a bit of a mess, they were perfect for fiddling around with the sewing machine. No pressure fearing to ruin a valuable piece. So I set out to close the upper rim, sewing the two layers together and figured out how to close the two parts of the bag in a way that wouldn’t show if you reversed it.
Strangely enough, sewing didn’t cause any problems, which made it all the more stressful when I ran into trouble again with the next project.
And once I was finished, I realised I liked these bags a lot more than I thought I would. The double layer gives them a nice feel and sturdiness. The faults are still there, so I won’t pass them on to anyone, but I already successfully dedicated one of them to carrying knitting projects if I want to take one along with me somewhere.
In fact, I like these bags so much that I put a follow-up project on my to-do list. I think there is a lot of potential there if I can weed out the faults I encountered previously. So hopefully no more limbo pile.
Speaking of limbo, I realised I left this blog hanging a bit without any new posts. Part of the reason was that I had many pending projects, but little to show for results for months. It’s one of the dangers of project hoarding.
I finally managed to complete some of those projects and will endeavour to share them over the next few months.
Snathanna 