I'm very good at starting things

I love starting new projects.  I love the process - the planning, the gathering of materials.  I think I've mentioned this before, along with my suspicion that I don't actually have hobbies, I just collect the things needed by those who have hobbies.  One of the reasons I started this blog was the hope that tracking what I'm making and getting to post pictures and write about a project would encourage me to see it through to the end.  Unfortunately, this blog often feels a bit like all my other projects - a series of "starts", brief flurries of activity, and then a lapse (which can last days, weeks, or even months), into inertia.  I am well aware of my problem: I am incapable of monogamy (only in the hobby/craft sense, before you fear a massively ill-judged Ashley Madison "over-share").

If I had the discipline to work only on one project, and not to allow myself to start something new until that was completed, I think I would have far more end products to show for my efforts.  And there is a very real, sense of satisfaction that comes from a completed project.  Me-Made-May and the efforts I've been making since then to wear the things I make has reminded me of how much I like completing things.  Sadly, I am massively butterfly-brained and am easily seduced by the lure of the new.  A flick through a magazine is too-often followed by a flurry of tapping on the Internet, the production of a credit card and then the arrival of another exciting parcel of goodies for another exciting project.  My husband is fond of saying that I'm "long on ideas, but short on execution". There is a lot of truth in this, although since I know I am perfectly capable of executing, and of meeting deadlines, I wonder if perhaps it is more a case of "my eyes are bigger than my belly": I have more ideas than I have time to complete.

This is ok - in fact, I distinctly remember the Mollie Makes girls talking about this very idea at Blogtacular.  But the many, many half finished projects in my life are starting to get me down. When allowed to get out of hand, startitis leaves you with nothing but works in progress and guilty weight of a to-do list longer than your arm.  I need to get some focus and remember that the buzz of finishing something and getting to show it off is so sweet.  I really must take myself in hand.

So, list of half completed blog posts, half sewn purple Cappuccino dress that I haven't told anyone about, massive pile of materials for the Cinderella dress that my dear, sweet daughter has actually given up asking me about (yes, the guilt...), I'm looking at you; and basket of half-completed, just needing sleeves/buttons/those last few rows, I'm definitely looking at you.  I'm coming for you.  I'm making a plan, and I'm going to start (because it feels more positive than admitting I'm just plodding along with the middle, and frankly I just can't help starting things) a new "finishing project".

Seriously, quit yapping and start sewing!  That front seam is all ready to go.