Hi, I'm Nicole Gilbert, and this is the stop scrolling start sewing podcast each Wednesday, join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life if you don't have a sewing machine, or you can bust out a pretty fly why seam or you just want to hear about the newest or coolest quilty news. This is the podcast for you.
Hi, folks, Nicole here and welcome to season three, Episode
13 of the stop scrolling, start selling podcast. Whether you're listening to me on your way to work, or watching on YouTube, thank you for spending a bit of your day with me. On this episode of the podcast I want to talk about when it's the right time to let go of a project and also some tips on what to do with the project. But first, before we dive in, let's talk about the quilt on the wall. So some of you may be familiar with this quilt. This is the sampler spree quilt based on Susan Archies sampler sprit book. And I am actually hosting a solo along right now with this quilt. It's a gorgeous quilt. So much fun to make. And I wanted to kind of reshare it because I've gotten a lot of questions as people see on YouTube, on my social media, all the different blocks that we're working on. So I kind of wanted to share it in its entirety. I mean, as much as I can get into the shot, which actually isn't much because there are 106 and a half inch or six inch finished blocks in this quilt. And they're just all different styles. This is a great scrap buster. And then it's got some really cool sashing sets. And it's it's a pretty sweet quilt. But what is super awesome is that this so long, I'm not calling it a so long, I'm referring to it as a slow along, because it is 100 blocks, we do are going to take some time to do it. And there's kind of no behind because I'm sharing block construction for every single block of video dedicated to each individual block on the YouTube channel. And so what's wonderful about that is that you can dive in whenever. So in the show notes in the video description, there is information about the course itself, where you can get the book, if you want to purchase the book, where you can sign up for the cell along if you want to dive in, join the private Facebook group, see what everybody's making, I just wanted to reshare all of that information for you. We are about we're a little ways into it not very far, we're not I don't even know if we're, yeah, we're a little ways into it. However, this is something that's going to be going on for another three or four months. So you have plenty of time, not to mention yet again, that all of those videos are going to live on in the Facebook group, you're going to get all the emails, you're gonna get all the things so you can kind of join in whenever which I mean is kind of a beautiful thing if I do say so myself. Okay. So that's the quote on the wall. So let's talk about letting go of a project. What do I mean by letting go? This episode is not about putting things away for a moment. There's a time and a place for that as well. And I think it's really healthy sometimes to just walk away. Sometimes we walk away for an hour, sometimes we walk away for a day, a week, a month, and then we come back, we're reinvigorated. We're ready to go and we've kind of figured out whatever it was that frustrated us enough to walk away. Very important. Very good topic, not today's topic. Today, we are talking about like actually letting go letting that project go to the great beyond, you are done. Not another stitch by your hand will be placed into it. No more time, no more energy, no more money. That is what we're talking about today with letting it go. So I am going to channel my inner Marie Kondo. And I'm going to say this is for projects that no longer bring us joy. That's how I want to look at this because this is our hobby. We love quilting. I love quilting. You love quilting. We love quilting. This hobby is here for a myriad of reasons for everybody. I mean, that's kind of like the route of hobby. Sometimes it's a distraction. Sometimes it's a way to feel productive. Sometimes it's a way to be creative. There's a myriad of reasons why we do this hobby. But underlying all of that is because it brings us joy. And I think that's really important for us to remember that this should be an enjoyable experience, is every moment going to be the best? Do I love trimming? 1000 half square triangles? No. However, I do it. Because overall, the process brings me joy. Some projects no longer do that. And that's okay. Think about also projects that have become kind of a chore to work on. Like that, you're like, Oh, God, I have to go to my machine and finish that. Who wants to think that way, when you go to your sewing machine, when you go to your sewing machine, you're like, Woohoo, I get to go to my sewing machine. That's how we want to feel. Okay. So if you're getting that like a have to do that, again, maybe it's time to let that project go. If you no longer care about the finished result, that is a project you should probably let go. There is nothing better. And this is you know, whether you call it your own quilts or anything, whatever you bind your own quilts, whatever, whatever the part of the process is that like gets you going. There's nothing better than that last stitch, whether you finally pieced the top, and now it's going to your long armor, whether you're taking it off your long arm frame, and you're unrolling that roll and it's like coming down and all its quilty goodness, whether it's stitching that last bit of hand binding to it. That that is like oh my god, look at this thing. I made this. Like, that's like my favorite sentence ever. I made this. And so if you are not so excited to hold this thing up and be like, I made this, how many times can I say that by the way, then it's probably a project to send to the group beyond and that's okay. But thinking all these things, you might still feel a little wishy washy about it. And that's okay. Because I'm saying all this stuff. And you're like, okay, yeah, common sense, common sense. But like, I don't want to get rid of it. A lot of times, we don't want to get rid of it, not because we don't want to get rid of it. But because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we spent that much time, money and energy on a project that we no longer want. That's really important. That's like a, it's like a come to the maker moment. Like, whatever you believe in, like for me, it would be come to Jesus, that's a come to Jesus moment, like, Okay, I need to talk to myself, because it's not about the project. That's about like my own head game, and my own headspace. And these are things that you can work through. You didn't know you were getting a therapy session, did you? But most of the time, when we're feeling wishy washy, when it's a project, that doesn't bring us joy, is a chore to work on. You don't care what it looks like when it's finished. The only reason to not want to walk away from those is because mentally it's messing with you that you spent that much time money and energy on it. That's okay, you just got to be like girl, you did it. That's who you were. And that's not who we're going to be moving forward. Okay, so one thing some of the things I want you to ask yourself when you're like looking at a project because like I said at the beginning there are projects that you need to walk away from because you're frustrated and there's projects that you need to walk away from because it don't they don't bring you joy. And sometimes we can mix those up so I'm not saying like Oh, you didn't have fun today throw it all throw all the baby out with the bathwater, it's too fast, too fast. So what I want you to do is first I want you to ask yourself, do you still love it? Like are you still super excited to see what it looks like when it's done? Maybe you didn't enjoy the process like there's some things like I know some and this is not me personally but some people truly dislike foundation paper piecing. These are also people who foundation paper piece all the time. Why would you do that? Because you adore the final product so much that it's worth the process. So do you still love it? Okay. Do you want to put in the time and money to finish it? Like you might like it and then be like this baby is going to take me like another month and like another 200 bucks. I could think of other things I want to spend my 200 bucks on. I've seen some things coming out that I want to put my 200 bucks on. If you're not like, Heck yes, I want to spend the next four weekends sewing this up. And my mad money on that. Maybe it's not the one for you. And you can go ahead and sunset it. Okay? Will it bring you joy to work on? Will it bring you joy to give it as a gift. So this is an important one, I have made some quilts that I truly to my core
cannot stand. Okay, I've done it. The reason why I've made it though, is that I absolutely adored the recipient and knew that it would be loved and cherished, and that they would appreciate that I made it. Okay. So sometimes it's not about us. So I will say that there are some projects that which while you might answer no to all of these other questions, which would technically mean like, get rid of it. Gifts are a little different. Because you know, other people's styles are different. You know, we don't we don't give gifts to make other people like what we want. We give gifts to bring other people joy. So if you gift it, will it bring you them joy? Will their joy, then bring you joy? And around and around we go. Okay, so keep that in mind. Will it bring you joy to work on it? Will it bring you joy to gift it? Will it bring you joy to display it? Okay, so here's another fun one.
My house Decor Style
is not my cozy style, like as you can see, from a lot of the quilts that I share and what I do, I like bright, vibrant, bold colors with a lot of pieces and parts. I like things to be a little bit busy. I like that. I love that. If you walked into my living room, you'd be like, Girl, where's your color? Because I have ash gray floors, and white couches and taupe, throw pillows and gray curtains like it's very neutral. It's very neutral. So the quote that I have for my couch is not actually my style for quilting, but it is my style for decor, which is fine, because it's a piece of my decor. So keep that in mind. Would it bring me joy? Normally No, but showing it off will so golden. Do you have the space to store it? I will say 90% of the time a project that's not bringing you joy will take at least 25% longer to make. If done properly. Then a quilt that you're like obsessed with the whole way through to the process it will take longer to make in which case you are going to have to store that. Do you have the space to store it? Do you have like an extra container because you'll probably start working on another project on the side that does bring you joy just so that you don't like go bananas. And now you'll have multiple plates in the air. So do you have space to store it? Would you rather use this space to store it for something else? Okay. Okay. And then this last one is my favorite. And it kind of harks back to what I was just saying about it taking a little bit longer usually to make projects that you're not obsessed with. Does the occasion for this quilt still exist? And I'm going to break that down like what does that really mean? Let's say you're making your friend's baby a quilt. If that baby just got into State College, that occasion no longer exists. Okay? If you're making a friend a quilt for their wedding, and she is now on husband number two, probably not a time to give them a quilt. You see the does the occasion still exist for the gift? Okay, now that doesn't mean you can't repurpose it. I will say the wedding ones a little different because I tend to like have a very strong attachment emotional thing with wedding quilts. And so there there's a very there's very much intention there. So I don't know how I would feel about necessarily thinking about a specific couple specific people and then turning around I'm giving it to somebody else. I don't really know how that would work in my brain, and maybe it works fine in your brain. That's cool. And I would like you to tell me about it because I can't really noodle my brain around it. However, what I don't have really much emotional attachment to probably because I have children and I know what they do to their quilts, is baby quilts. So I'm totally fine to start a baby quilt, have that baby go off to preschool without ever getting it, and then the next kid that pops out gets the next one. I'm totally fine with kind of redirecting the recipient. Cuz, you know, I just don't, that's who I am. So, those are some questions that I want you to think about. Do you still love it? Do you want to put the time and money into finishing it? Will it bring you joy to work on it, gift it or display it? Do you have the space to store it? Would you rather be storing something else in its place? Does the occasion still exist? Okay, so that's our checklist. That's what we're gonna go through to see, you know what, maybe it's time to let go and let love. Alright. So what can you do if you don't want the courts anymore? If you decide that it's just not love that, you know, I'm just not into you? That's fine. There's a lot of awesome things that you can do that are not wasteful. Okay. Number one, you can donate the unfinished quilt and supplies to your local guilt. There is always almost always, I would say almost, but almost always, somebody at your local guild, whether you are a participant in the guild or not, you can always just call them and be like, Hey, I've got stuff for your free table. Do you want it? They will say yes. But there's almost always somebody who is either I mean, quote, supplies are expensive. Projects are expensive. And so to be gifted, something that they can put joy, and maybe they absolutely adore the colors that you picked you you hated it you moved on, but somebody else probably will adore it and cherish it. How is that not a win when you get it off of your hands and somebody else gets to experience the joy of making a beautiful quilt. That's awesome. You can also repurpose your orphan blocks. So orphaned blocks are really funny. I have a ton, I have way more orphan blocks than I should. And I get orphan blocks because I start like a very specific so long that like no longer is my jam. So I've got a bunch of blocks, but nowhere to put them. Because I don't have enough to finish the quilt. I get orphan blocks because I've made testers. So I'm actually I just like looked off to the side if you're watching on YouTube. And that's because I've got two orphan blocks on my coat wall right now. Because I was testing a quilt pattern that I'm designing. And I used fabrics that are not really my jam, solely because I didn't want to waste anything I love. But now I'm thinking about it. Now that I'm starting to turn out more and more quilt patterns, I need to like pick a designer pick a fabric line, pick a theme, so that I can then reuse my orphan blocks. But there's, there's a myriad of reasons why you could have orphan blocks. Anyway, you can repurpose them. A lot of times when we have orphan blocks is because we started something we actually did like we did like it, we liked either the fabric or we liked the patterns, the actual quilt pattern, the block patterns. So why not take those blocks that you don't have enough of to make a quilt and make throw pillows. Make placemats make pot holders may I mean, there's so many things that you could do actually, for pot holders, I have an awesome tutorial, I'll put it in the description. But you can go ahead Oh, and also for pillows too. I'll put that in the description too. You can repurpose them and you still use them and still get something out of them. So they're not just like sitting there. But okay. And then another thing, another way to repurpose them is to actually make a scrappy backing for a different quilt. So maybe you love the fabrics but the blocks weren't really your jam or vice versa. You could just sew it in to your backing fabric and now you've got like a little hint of something fun on your back as well as on your front. Hello, how cool is that? So there is a ton of stuff that you can do and I I would love to hear your ideas. So if you have any ideas about, about what you could do with orphaned blocks, what you could do with unfinished pattern projects, oh, something else,
scraps from unfinished fabrics that like let's say the reason why you didn't like something was because you really was were not taken with the fabric anymore. Your fabric choices were just not on point and you have a bunch of scraps, you can donate those to your local humane society and they make dog pillows out of them. So another great thing to do with your salvages you can all your small little scraps, donate them to your local humane society, they make drug pills out of them. So that's another thing. But anyway, if you've got any other ideas or thoughts on today's topic, go ahead, throw them in the video description if you are on YouTube. Or if you're listening on your favorite podcast provider, you can go ahead and shoot me an email Nicole at Nicole Gilbert quotes.com. I would love to hear from you. And remember, if you want to join in on the sample, it's pretty slow long. The links are in the show notes and video description. Also a few weeks ago, I was sharing that by Annie's ultimate travel bag and kind of rustling up some ideas or interest to see if anybody would be interested in it so long for that. I've received quite a few emails. I've received some comments on the YouTube. So if you are interested, go ahead and drop me a comment, just so that I can really gauge interest and get that set up. I would love to do it with you guys. I think that it's a great skill set for you guys to have. But I also want to make sure that I'm not talking to no one. All right, so you folks have just finished another episode of the stop scrolling start sewing podcast. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and make sure you never miss an episode. By hitting subscribe wherever you listen or watch. And if you have a moment, please leave a review on your favorite podcast provider. It helps more listeners find me and join in on the fun. Now stop scrolling and start sewing