So many starts, so few finishes

babo4ka

What is wrong with me? I am a passionate stitcher, and my stash size is enourmous. But the problem is not that! Here's what bother me: I start a cross stitch project (of a medium size or Dimensions Gold collection size, for example), and about 35-40% done I get tired of it. So I switch to another start. I reach 35% or so, and guess what? Yep, I put it away, as well, and immediately start kitting up another exciting design, and get right on doing it. But what about old abandoned WIPs? I just do not feel like returning to them. They just end up on a shelf or in the box. It's like a vicious cycle! Meanwhile, the amount of WIPS piles up, occupying space and eating at my guilt. Any advice, my fellow stitchers?

StitchAndi

To get to the finishes I pick a project and work on it 30 minutes a day until it is finished. I like starts more than anything else. To keep my wip pile reasonable my daily 30 project really helps.

madericodello

io realizzo principalmemte amigurumi e  mi succede la stessa : inizio  una bambola  e quando sto quasi per finire  sospendo e ne inzio un'altra e così continuando .  Ho capito che per riprendere e finire la prima bambola  devo inventare per lei  una nuova destinazione : deve diventare la parte di un fuoriporta oppure deve avere altri vestiti e altri accessori , insomma deve far parte di un progetto più grande . Puoi provare con i ricami rimasti in sospeso a farli diventare quadri, arazzi, cuscini,.....per trovare motivazione prova a fare in modo che siano "solo  una parte" del progetto  finito

I mainly make amigurumi and the same thing happens to me: I start a doll and when I'm almost finished I stop and start another and so on. I understood that to take and finish the first doll I have to invent a new destination for her: she must become the part of an outdoor party or she must have other clothes and other accessories, in short she must be part of a larger project. You can try with the unfinished embroidery to turn them into paintings, tapestries, cushions,... to find motivation try to make sure that they are "just part" of the finished project

Everia

Hi, it happens all the time, starting a new project is always exciting, working on it for hours by small incriments a lot less.
I suggest working on your stacked WIP for a short time, about 30 minutes, while you keep yourself busy with a podcast or an episode of a tv show. I find that like this the repetitive work gets done easier and I'm less crossed at myself for leaving projects unfinished.
You can try to think of your stack as more of a "Let's spice up today's work with a forgotten piece", instead of "Yet another abandoned one tossed into pile".
Lastly, if you don't reach for some projects for a couple of months, take into consideration the idea of discarding them, maybe they didn't interest you as much as you first thought. That's no failure, only time management of your free time!
Hope that helps, always be kind to yourself :)

babo4ka

Thank you, all, for your responses! I guess I expressed certain things in a way that was confusing. Get bored in my case did not mean the WIPS "boring". All my WIPs are wonderful, I still love them, and I want to see them finished. So discarding is not an option. The problem is time - it takes too long to finish each. And during that time it's inevitable that I find something new sparkling interest, another exciting thing pops up -and boom! I am switching to it. While doing it, I promise myself, that I will return to each WIP. But I never do. Because new WIPS occupy my time. So I guess, this is a problem of self-discipline - how to get my mind and interest BACK to the abandoned (but never forgotten) projects?

lycisy

I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way.
I was constantly seeing something new and exciting that I absolutely had to knit.
The mountain of wips was constantly growing.
Last year, when I moved house, I saw what had piled up. A really insanely large stash, which will probably last me until my 400th birthday, and wips without end.

Now something like discipline has actually returned.
I'm still knitting new projects, but I have to finish one wip per new project.
And - amazingly - it actually works.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts forever.

Picxie

The same thing used to happen to me when I x stitched.. in my case, I let them all go when we moved 5 yrs ago. Maybe give the box a time, if you haven’t opened it, looked at it in 3/4/5/6 months, you let it go… it is a hobby meant to bring us joy and relaxation, if those projects don’t bring either to you, it’s ok to let it go. Maybe save some of the bigger pieces of AIDA .. it’s a little simpler with crochet/knitting UFOs because you can just frog .. in fact, I’m making my next wreath cover from frogs …

eeyoresfriend

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Small bites (metaphorically speaking) of say an hour or two a week and you can make a dent in those wips
Also, get a notebook and make a list of the works you have on the go and perhaps a guesstimate of how much time left to complete and identify what you will do with it, could you gift it? Is there a suitable date (birthday/anniversary) you could aim for?

celiamerula

I too get to thinking of my next project before I'm half finished the one I'm working on.  I have two pieces of advice that have worked for me:  after a big project, work on a few small ones (greeting card size maybe, use up some fabric and floss scraps); I also try to imagine myself stitching the design - too many blocks of one just one colour is not fun :(

babo4ka

@lycisy, thank you for your advice! I am taking one of my WIPs (Dimensions Indian Peacock) and move it to our motorhome which is parked in a place of real peacocks. I thought it would be stimulating to stitch this WIP while watching real peacocks walk around the grounds. So every time I visit that place, I put my hands on this project and move it along, bit by bit.

cazlv

Ohh I know how you feel. I'm making amigurumi and I have a big 'box of shame' - box with a lot of parts (hands, legs, heads, ears etc) - really, sometimes I think I'm a very sick person but I decide that this is my hobby, if I'm not enjoying it, I'll give up. So whatever, maybe I'll come back to those dolls, bears, animals or maybe I won't - who cares ;)

bugcanyon222

I do a small amount at a time (maybe 5 or 10 minutes at a time) to make things more manageable. If you still don't like what you're making, it's OK to move on to something else.

Hollyhobby

I wish I could help you, I've got to many hobbies. One of them is stitching, but it seems I can't finish them either ;(

MissPriss

I hold myself to a strict number limit on WIPs, and I try to spend a certain % of crafting time on the "boring" WIPs. If I don't have some discipline in my hobbies, it very quickly devolves into a semi-hoarder situation, and that is not how I want to live!