Understanding my resistance to my sewing UFOs
This is Part 3 in my goal to finish my UFOs. It’s time to really dive deep into understanding my resistance to my sewing UFOs – because this will get me closer to finishing them. When I overcome my resistance, it will feel easy to finish my sewing UFOs, instead of a chore to slog through.
My progress so far
Recap: I have over 30 UFOs that I want to finish. But I’m struggling with the motivation and have lost my zing for sewing.
I have gathered up my UFOs first. Then I completed my Action Task list for each of them.
The Action Task List summarizes this info about each project: where I stopped; what decisions I still need to make; what to do next; how I feel about each one; and why I stopped.
It’s all just a story
But truly, it’s not actually that “I know” why I stopped, but rather that for some of them I have a story in my head that I’m telling myself.
A great example of this is a lovely kit I bought and started for a gorgeous folded chinese fabric puzzle. For years it has inspired massive guilt because I always thought I had lost the last two pieces in a move. A very unorganized move. I had a story revolving around my guilt and my shame that I was so messy back then.
But recently, I found those two pieces. It made me re-think the whole story I was telling myself. I realized it was “just a story” and not reality.
These two missing blocks helped fuel my resistance to my sewing UFOs. Oh the guilt!
Where did I get stuck and stop?
When I looked closely I noticed that I stopped for one of two reasons:
- I made a mistake, usually a cutting mistake. And now it’s been so long I don’t even know where the mistake was exactly. I just remember cutting a block wrongly.
- I got to the binding stage.
Time to bring out the big guns. Time for a thought download. It’s a tool I use when I want to look at how my thoughts, feeling and actions relate.
A thought download is just me writing all my thoughts down on paper about a specific topic. Super simple. Yet very powerful.
- A good chunk of these just need binding done.
- How in the heck did I make so many cutting mistakes?
- A few stopped because I didn’t like how my artistic effort was going – the composition wasn’t pretty enough. I felt inadequate.
- Only a couple stopped because of lack of fabric.
- A couple make me feel sad. I just don’t want to work on these anymore.
- There’s a few here I’m really inspired to keep working on. Especially “99 red balloons”
- I’ve learnt a lot of different techniques from my UFOs.
Right – there’s some good info here. Info I have pulled out because I went through the painstaking process of gathering, organizing and listing out each UFO on my Action Task List.
Jump on board and download it here.
So what is creating the resistance to my sewing UFOs?
I could just start grinding through these UFOs one by one. It would still feel painful though. I’ve got a hunch there’s a bit more to it here.
There must be more thoughts that are affecting my ability to love sewing, and get motivated to finish my UFOs.
How have the bits I love about sewing,
and the bits I dislike about sewing,
come together to create over 30 UFOs?
Yep, another thought download… This time on how I feel about sewing… and my resistance to my sewing UFOs.
- I love quilting
- I love patchwork
- When I iron I always seem to stretch the fabric crooked.
- I don’t like ironing.
- I wish I had a pressing station.
- I’m bad at rotary cutting.
- My cuts always turn out crooked. And my ruler always moves. And I keep making measurement errors lately.
- Piecing is so much fun.
- My ¼” seam is not very accurate. It doesn’t bother me much though.
- Oh my gosh I just discovered my tape measure is completely wrong.
- That could be why I made all those cutting mistakes.
- I don’t like binding. It’s no fun. I’m just not confident in my binding techniques.
- I’m pretty good at choosing and matching different colors
From a distance this tape measure looks okay.But when I finally looked closer, a whole lot of cutting mistakes began to make sense. I just couldn’t believe it!
But when you look closer, something is clearly not right. Oh dear!
But why was I resisting my sewing UFOs, and my sewing so strongly?
There were a few more thoughts but these were the main ones.
Hmm… See how lots of these thoughts create negative feelings? I could self coach myself on each of these thoughts, but I’m going for bang for my buck here. I really need to find out what’s creating this resistance to my sewing UFOs.
Can you spot the biggest limiting beliefs here? The bits where I’ve given up on any room for improvement?
Yep! Ironing. Cutting. Binding.
So… I’ll start with ironing, cutting and binding.
The plan to overcome my resistance to my sewing UFOs
What I’m going to do is a really deep thought download on each of these. Really turn them inside out and examine what my head thinks about each activity. Then self coach myself through these thoughts. I’ll use this info to take some actions and then create a new result.
Stay tuned for my next post on….. Can I learn to love ironing?
PS> For all you purists out there, I use the words ironing and pressing interchangeably, although I know they are sort of different.
What do you think about ironing? How does it make you feel? What else do you love or hate about your sewing parts?
I learned to iron when I was still a child in the 50’s.I loved watching wrinkled things turn out beautifully flat, so I begged to be allowed to iron.
First it became my “job” to iron all my Daddy’s hankies. Then I moved on to pillowcases with beautiful embroidery. & I got hooked!
Time progressed and ironing went from putting damp clothes in the freezer & then ironing those ice cold cottons with a hot iron that only had 3 settings(hot,medium & off)to spritzing with special ironing sprays & an iron that has settings for heat,type of fabric,spray,steam or even a burst of steam.My sewing and tailoring classes always included an instructor that insisted that a seam was not finished at the sewing machine, but at the iron.
Having an iron ready to press those seams while I’m sewing makes a world of difference.I still like to iron, but I’m thankful for the difference in today’s fabrics and the irons that make our job so much easier.
Leticia, you are so right! Isn’t it amazing how even the simplest technology has progressed?
I started with ironing Daddy’s hankies too! I liked doing that. Not sure where I got off track after that.
And yes, now that you mention it, I’m now picturing the seams finished at the iron. Thanks!
I had 3 older brothers and a stepdad that wore dress shirts. So my mom would pay me a quarter a shirt. I set up my ironing station in the cool basement (no AC back then) and I’d iron away. It got me started on a life-long love of ironing and earning my own spending money for those Beatles records.
Ahh, the joys of pocket money. I remember talking my parents into paying me for jobs around the farm. I can’t remember what I spent the money on, candy I think!
Glad it helped you love ironing and not dislike it Linda!
As long as I did the ironing, I was allowed to spend my weekend watching Elvis movie marathons. I think at one stage I was ironing 22 items per movie (yes each hanky counted as 1 item)
I love hand-binding. Recently we had sessions where we would help each other bind taking a side each and just going for it. Yes some of us sewed left to right and the others right to left but it didn’t matter. The binding was done. We did make 1 person responsible for doing the corners so that they went in the same direction.
What a wonderful way to get an item finished Melinda, like the quilting bees that used to be so popular.