The Sewing Chair no.5

Still Under Construction

Pull up a chair. Stay awhile.

A few months ago, I made this construction-themed rag quilt for my grandson's birthday. It has bright orange fabric, trucks and tractors, ragged edges, and a panel near the bottom that reads, "Construction Area. Keep Out." At the time, I simply thought it fit the theme of the quilt. It made me smile, and I knew it would make him smile too.

This week, as I walked past it again, I realized that little sign might be describing more than a child's quilt. It could just as easily describe my sewing room.

There are several Block of the Month projects waiting for their next block. A sampler quilt is slowly becoming a collection of quilting techniques from around the world. There is a quilt I'd like to hand quilt, and beside my recliner sits a growing stack of Manx quilt blocks that I work on while watching television or listening to an audiobook. Beyond quilting, there are cross-stitch and crochet projects waiting patiently, and an entire house that keeps reminding me it would appreciate a fresh coat of paint.

Looking around, it would be easy to see nothing but unfinished work. I suspect most of us have done exactly that. We look at the list of things we haven't completed and somehow convince ourselves that the list is measuring us.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that every finished quilt I own once looked exactly like the projects scattered around my sewing room today. Before it was folded on a shelf or draped across the back of a chair, it was simply another idea in progress. Fabric hadn't been cut yet. Blocks hadn't been sewn. There were mistakes to fix, decisions to make, and days when it sat untouched because life required my attention somewhere else.

That isn't failure.

It's how quilts are made.

Somewhere along the way, I think many of us begin treating our own lives differently than we treat our hobbies. We celebrate growth when we're learning a new quilting technique, but we become impatient with ourselves when life takes longer than we expected. We convince ourselves that happiness will arrive after the next accomplishment, the next promotion, the next project, the next vacation, the next debt is paid, or the next item is crossed off the list.

There is always another list.

The problem is that if we're always living for what comes after this project, we risk missing the life that's happening while we're still building it. Most of our days are not spent standing at the finish line. They're spent learning, adjusting, making mistakes, changing plans, and becoming a little different than we were yesterday. That's true whether we're making a quilt, raising a family, building a career, or simply trying to become a wiser version of ourselves.

When I look around my sewing room now, I don't see evidence that I can't finish things. A few months ago I finished this quilt for my grandson. This week I finished another quilt for my uncle. The projects that remain aren't abandoned; they're simply waiting for their turn. Some are intentionally long-term because I enjoy working on them slowly. Some will probably be finished sooner than others. None of them needs to become a race.

Perhaps life isn't meant to be a race either.

Maybe we place too much value on completion and not enough on construction. After all, the construction is where we learn the new technique, laugh at our mistakes, solve the little problems, and quietly discover that we know more today than we did when we began. Those moments rarely make the photograph at the end, but they are the part we actually lived.

I hope I always have a sewing room with something under construction. More importantly, I hope I remain a person who's still under construction. I hope there is always something new to learn, another skill to develop, another perspective to consider, and another reason to remain curious.

That little sign on my grandson's quilt made me smile when I stitched it into place.

Now it reminds me of something else.

Construction areas aren't places to avoid. They're places where something worthwhile is being built.

Thanks for stopping by The Sewing Chair.

I'll save you a seat for next Sunday.

~Chris