I'm one of those people who loves to start creative projects. Crafty projects, sewing projects, cooking projects, home improvement projects... I like to think of myself as creative, but I suspect what I really am is a creative wannabe. Because while I love to start creative projects, actually finishing them is a whole different matter. In fact, finishing projects is something I rarely do.
My guest bedroom used to be my home office/sewing room until we had another baby, and the former guest bedroom became the baby's bedroom, so my home office/sewing room suddenly gained a double bed and the necessity of hosting guests, which we tend to have often enough that I can't just leave all of my projects and their attendant paraphernalia all over the room. I have to put it away. In the closet. Or should I say, The Closet.
The day after Christmas I opened The Closet and a whole bunch of stuff fell out on me. It was like that episode of Friends, when Chandler tries to break into Monica's locked closet and discovers that it's her "chaotic space", full of all kinds of random crap that seems completely at odds with her otherwise obsessive-compulsive personality. Except instead of a laugh track, there was just me, stepping on straight pins and swearing like a sailor.
I tried to put the stuff back into The Closet, mostly by shutting one of the double doors and shoving things behind it, then quickly slamming the other door. But it didn't work. The doors burst open on their own, and even more stuff fell out the second time.
So I took everything out of The Closet and embarked on a three-day organising bender. I sorted, I made piles of "like" things, I found bits of this and that project and put them in the right spot. I put some of the project in plastic baggies (until I ran out of plastic baggies, and then I just made piles). I put stuff on the guest bed, the desk, the other desk, the floor, and the windowsill. I managed to get some of the stuff back into The Closet, but not enough.
What is all this stuff, you ask? Well, that's the embarrassing part. There's a quilt I started making for my former roommate's daughter while she was still in utero seven years ago. A quilt I started making for myself three years ago -- or was it four? Two baby rompers I cut out but never started sewing. A half-finished skirt for my daughter I started last summer. My childhood doll, whose dress I mended but whose yarn hair I never got around to replacing (although I spent a whole weekend combing the yarn stores for the right colour yarn to replace it with). Two kilograms of dried split peas, for making counting bean bags. The wallpaper border I bought for my kitchen three years ago. A whole lot of embroidery projects with needles still stuck into the last spot I stitched. Several shirts awaiting buttons.
And more. Oh, so much more... Some of it so random, I don't even remember why I have it. Picture frames, wooden clothes pegs, dried flower petals, fish tank pebbles, scrapbook paper, craft paint, ribbons, buttons, soft toy stuffing. Books and fabric and thread. Patterns and albums and stickers and tulle and beads and scarves and a whole box of men's neckties. Broken-spined children's books and cupcake tins and a box of my husband's late grandma's dresses, to be made into four quilts, one for each of her children.
There's no way all of this stuff will fit back into The Closet. I'm not sure how I got it all in there in the first place, to be honest. So I've set myself a goal. This year, instead of making New Year's resolutions, I'm going to work my way through this pile of stuff and attempt to finish 52 projects. I'm going to try for one project a week, and I'm going to post about it here. Some projects are big, some are medium-sized, and some are small. But they're all unfinished, and they're all taking up too much space in my house and my psyche. In 2013, I'm gonna clean out The Closet.
