Chaos and Order - Walking the WIP Tightrope

It reminds me a little of being a teenager and coming home from a school camp. For a week you're being entertained, experiencing new things, you're fed and the dishes are done for you and you come home to your annoying siblings and parents wanting you to do your homework and chores. It's hard re-entering normal life again! 

I also experience it after a product launch. For weeks, I have a very clear goal, which provides such clarity to my days. I love having something to look forward to, something to work towards. And then, once it's over - crash!

Perhaps you've felt it after a big exciting move, or retiring from work, or the kids leaving home, or finishing a quilt, or even having a baby. The big exciting thing you were working towards and looking forward to is here and reality sets in. You've lost having something to look forward to.

In ancient times, this rollercoaster was expressed through myths and legends as the struggle between chaos and order, a completely normal part of human experience and nature and even organisations. Chaos can show up as emptiness, a lack of structure, or it can be more literal messiness or violence. It can be an empty lawn just waiting for a garden, or it can be a housing crash. It can be starting a new job, and it can be a marriage ending. It's where opportunity and inspiration come from, but throw in too much of it, and it's a dark place. 

Order, on the other hand, is structure, routine, certainty. Create it in the right measure, and it provides peace and trust and the ingredients required for financial prosperity. The right amount might be a helpful routine or meal plan, a steady job, a faithful partner. Too much and people can't express new ideas, create change or be free. Too much is Nazi Germany. 

Before QuiltCon, I had a great balance of chaos and order. I had a clear vision which formed my days. I didn't spend too much time wondering what the right thing to do was. I had a goal, I had a list, and I also had upcoming adventure and possibility.

Now that I'm back, the goal and the list have dissolved, and I find myself on the other side of the coin. I have my old demanding routine back. Meals to cook, kids to get to school. And, in my creative life, I am at sea. Rudderless. Uninspired. Anxious. And, in my experience, whenever there's too much chaos or the structure is too boring, when there's no goal to work towards, or no project that's captured my attention, direction and spark don't come just by thinking really hard (which is a pity, because that's what I've spent the last week doing!). I need to rebuild it by DOING.

I find times like this are perfect for going through my quilty works in progress (WIPs). I have so many new ideas and so many quilts on the go that it's too hard to narrow down on any one. But, if I just spend a little season finishing off quilts that are so close to the finish line, I usually find that this act of tidying up, clearing out the space they hold in my head, leads to a clearer sense of direction for the next season. 

So today I went through my WIPs and made a list. I have a mix of projects that range from new ideas just tried out with a block, to quilt tops just waiting for ironing. My plan over the next several weeks is to finish as many as I can that don't need a new pattern. I'm not committing to any launch schedules just yet. But, I will let myself play if the whim hits. The point is to develop a bit of a plan for the year, by clearing out the last remnants of quilts from last year (or the year before!). 

I have 17 such quilts in my WIP collection. Fifteen are photographed in the WIP layout at the top of the post, and two extras are on the ladder. Two of these WIPs are one pattern, Wintergreen, that needs a pattern and kit update, so I'm not sure if I'll get to those. I'm just laying them out in case they create any spark. 

At times like this, it's tempting to create a little too much structure. To make a rule like "nothing new until I've finished all these" or "pick a quilt and don't put it down until it's done." It's appealing in a season of chaos to fight back with even more order. But, I've discovered that when I do this, I just feel more trapped and eventually, less inspired. My goal here is just to create movement, and then eventually, direction. I'm following the adage, "You can only steer a moving ship." 

In the past I have used helpful rules like "Finish 2, Start 1" which are great if you've started to feel overwhelmed by your WIP count, and want to reward your finishes with a new quilt on your 'To Make' list. And, I've thought about setting aside one day a week to baste and finish a quilt. Perhaps, I will still use that last one. Right now, though, I feel reluctant to commit to any rules. My motivation is so wary, I don't want to force it. I just want to tidy up to create the right environment for it to flourish. 

As I look over my WIPs, I do see a pattern. I usually stop at the end of a roll - I stitch and stitch and stitch, and then I get to the point where I need to make a decision - usually what backing or background fabric to use - and then I put it away and find something else with easy progress. So for many of these WIPs, I may not finish them, but I'll try to do the next right thing. Make the fabric decision, iron the quilt top, baste the next round of shapes, unpick that joining shape I don't like so I can choose one I do. If that leads to a finished quilt, that's great! Often getting across that big hurdle makes all the other steps flow together easily. But if it doesn't, that's ok too. There's enough cooking meals and getting kids ready for school in my life without me turning my quilting life into one long chore list! 

As I make my way through my WIPs, I'm going to blog about my process, the things that hold me back from finishing, the quilts that get my attention, and collect them here. I hope they inspire you to rediscover old quilts and the joy you found in them, as well as start new quilts without guilt or fear that they'll never be finished. Quilt WIPs are such a great way to learn what captures our attention, what holds us back, how we enjoy to make, and what parts are worth skipping over. They should never be a source of shame. 

I've written a few blog posts already about my WIP process and compiled them. Click the button below to read more!