In the Zone: Bonnie’s Stash

This is Jake's studio area in her home office. No, it's not usually this neat and yes, the cat, Xena, is always there. The baskets stacked to the left of her sewing machine contain a couple of projects in progress that Jake hopes to have finished sometime before the end of this decade. Yes, hope springs eternal, but the point is that having your work at hand and ready to play with will help you to finish it sooner!

Once a month, I help out with the prayer quilt ministry at my church. I’m not the most prolific piecer in the group, but I enjoy being with my friends and helping the general cause. In efforts like this, talent seems to match up with task, and I usually tie quilts that are almost ready for donating to someone in need. (The other gals long ago decided my color sense was too weird to allow me to put together kits, so tying it is.)

Recently, though, the work session was given over to sorting through Bonnie’s stash. Bonnie was a member who died suddenly last spring. She was what the q-biz calls a “dedicated quilter,” with a Gammill longarm, an embroidery machine and several sewing machines. And bags and bales and boxes of fabric.

Her stash was so big that this was actually our third pass through, pulling out quilt-worthy fabrics and sending the rest on to other charities. But this evening’s batch also included most of her unfinished projects. Now, as UFOs go, she was a lightweight, but there were a few stacks of ready-to-set pieced blocks and some cut-out garments and half-finished crafty projects.

You can’t help but get a little philosophical during one of these exploration sessions. My first thought was “OMG, I have got to clean out my sewing room!” The prospect of others pawing through my crafting and sewing crap fills me with horror and shame. (Yes, shame, because I’m a grown-up and how on God’s earth did I let it get this bad?)

But this was not supposed to be all about me. It was a night to think about Bonnie, and the joy she got from being creative with fabric. She was only 47, but she was a fairly traditional gal. Her projects and pieced tops were flawlessly executed, but many were not exciting to me in terms of design or color scheme. Then we found the queen-sized batch of Log Cabin blocks in a mix of fun, more Modern prints and solids, and I’m thinking, “Go, Bonnie!” Other treasures were the vintage embroidery transfers (including some that Mexi-Queen Jane Tenorio Coscarelli would love to arm-wrestle for) and the several dozen delicately hand-embroidered baby quilt blocks. What inspired her to start these works? What other project lured her away, before she could finish them?

And we found stuff for which there was no explanation, such as the mystery bag of mondo-sized flower petals cut from a slinky poly-cotton. Huh? By that time our eyes were glazing over and we just re-tied the bag o’ petals and tossed it on the giveaway pile. (Bonnie must have felt the same way, or the project would probably have been finished.)

But hey, she tried different things, and that was what I really liked finding out–that even though she was a traditional quilter, Bonnie did not limit herself. In that way, she was a no-rules gal. Looking through her UFOs gave me insight into who she was as a quilter, and it felt intimate. I hope her version of heaven includes a sewing machine and a good rotary cutter. Now, excuse me while I go muck out my sewing room….

Some Useful Thoughts on UFOs and Stash Management

There’s an old joke around guild meetings that says in lieu of having a daughter who makes quilts, your son must one day marry a quilter so you have someone to give your stash to when you die. The point is that our stash can’t come with us. (Though you can certainly request it.) So maybe with the thought of our mortality in place, we can offer up some finish-those-UFOs suggestions for you? But, if you share space with a loving partner and you have A LOT of projects, you’ll want to do this when you have privacy because the jokes and/or complaints can be very discouraging. Trust us. We know.

1. Get out ALL of your UFOs. Lay them out on the floor and make sure all of the materials needed to complete them, at least to the top stage, are there, along with the patterns and any special materials.

2. Place each project in a separate bag or box. There many ways to do this. Jake uses 2 ½-gallon zip bags to hold her projects. Most projects can go in one or two bags. She uses a Sharpie to label the bags with the project’s name and date (sometimes). These then get tossed into a large filing cabinet (now full) and large plastic bins. Clear plastic lidded boxes, clean pizza boxes, shelf bins and other storage items can also work here. But the important point is to try to keep your method consistent (the bags are cheap and reusable), protect it from dust and dirt, and accessible (easy to see into).

3. Prioritize your projects. Ask:

a)    Does your project have a specific recipient and/or purpose, AND IS THAT PURPOSE STILL VALID (i.e. your son’s baby quilt but he just graduated from high school)?

b)   Does your project have a deadline, as in a quilt for upcoming school fundraiser)?

c)    Were you having a blast working on this project? (This project should become a top priority because fun is important!)

d)   Will this project earn you money? (Maybe for a magazine pattern or as a class sample for teaching.)

e)    Do you still need materials and/or fabric for this project that you don’t already have? (If there’s a significant investment still needed in the project do you really want to make it?)

f)     How far along are you? (Yes, we have quilts sitting around that only need a binding to be finished. Those become priority projects because done fast provides great satisfaction—even if it’s been sitting for a decade!)

g)    The most important question: DO YOU STILL LIKE THE DARNED THING? Look, we can forget that sewing and quilting are supposed to be fun. UFOs are often born from an absence of project enjoyment. So, if you don’t like it, give it up. (Unless there’s a really, really good reason to keep at it, and if that’s the case, we want to know why!) Your project doesn’t have to go to waste. Like Melissa’s quilt ministry, there are tons and tons and tons of groups and people out there who love finishing what others start. Try with your personal quilt connections through the guilds, bees or online. Ask at the shops, aid groups, churches and temples. Someone somewhere will be excited to work on your discarded project. And you won’t have to feel guilty about it because you now have room in your studio and your calendar to finish something else.

4. So you’re prioritized. Make a master list of what you’re keeping and in what order you’d like to finish them. If any of them still need some materials, make a separate list for shopping. Include snips of fabrics to match and a pic of the quilt/project itself.

5. Now you get to take the two most pressing project bags/boxes/bins to your machine and start working on them. It helps if one project is simpler than the other. Even if you only get to your machine for 15 minutes every other day, it’s good. And if you have the luxury of leaving your project out when you’re done for the day, even better. When you are done with those two (and you can switch back and forth between them), allow yourself to start one new project. Without a new infusion of joy, you risk getting bored with seeing the same old, same old. But, don’t start more than one for every two projects.

6. Check off your projects as you finish and take pictures. Even if you don’t blog or sell, you’ll be happy to have the memory of your work for those times when you think you never get anything done. Trust us!!