Things I HAVE finished

I was wallowing around in "I suck, I can't finish writing anything" last weekend.  I am done with that, however, and on to "I may have alot of unfinished stuff, but I have alot of damned fine things I've finished, too!"

Okay, none of those damned fine finished things are manuscripts.  But here's the thing.  I am very creative.  I am crafty.  I like to make stuff.  I quilt, I knit, I spin.  I like to get to the bare bones of a craft project and start with the raw materials.  A friend turned me on to scrap booking about 15 years ago, and as I started buying fancy papers and rubber stamps, I got interested in making my own papers and rubber stamps.  I started quilting, and while I did't go as far as growing my own cotton, I have done some fabric painting and printing and stuff like that.  I knit, and I love the fancy yarns, and taught myself how to spin.  We know someone who raises sheep, so I got some raw fleeces from him and cleaned them, and dyed them, and...can I just say that sheep are some nasty-ass creatures?  Phew. 

I dyed and spun the wool for this before I knit it!

I spent a few hours in my craft room Saturday sorting and pitching and rearranging things and realize that, while I have enough raw materials to stock a new Hobby Lobby store, I have alot of UFO's (unfinished objects) in various stages between "done" and "not started".   I have lots of stuff I've finished and not shown anyone, too.  And that's okay!

A few years ago I worked with a woman who competes in women's figure competitions (it's body building, but not as bulky), and she said to me, "You sew, will you make me a suit?"  Ummm.  Okay.  And I did. I went throught miles and miles of spandex and elastic before I got something that sort of worked.  I have a huge pile of bikini bits in my basement, but I finally finished a suit.  God love her, Abbie wore it in competition.  And I learned what I needed to do to make a better suit.  I started making suits for other women, some of whom won their competitions.   Business has trickled off because the requirements for the posing suits have changed, but I learned alot from jumping into that project.  I learned that I need a lot of trial an error and that I will have many, many false starts before I get something right. 

So instead of beating myself up for not having a finished manuscript (less than a year after I decided to get serious about learning to write), I am going to focus on appreciating the things that I HAVE finished.  Maybe I'll get out some new words and toss them together to see how they look on the old design board.