How to sew your way out of a paper bag

Sometimes you have a project that has you saving materials for months, if not years. It takes up space in the corner taunting you with it's potential, whispering "I'm gonna be awesome! You'll have time to work on me any day/month/year/decade now!".

So gradually you keep adding materials to the pile, going so far as to hoard items that would be better suited to other projects; even prehaps buying things for it and placing them lovingly in the pile of potential. All the while you are envisioning an ever greater and more beautiful project. A project to end all projects, it will inspire endless jealousy in all your friends, bringing you fame and accolades all over the internet! Just as soon as you finish it ...or better yet start the damn thing.

You keep putting it off because you think maybe you don't have all the equipment for it, or you don't have the skills for it, or the time to do it justice... but really these are all just excuses for what you know deep down in the depths of your heart:

This project is going to suck.

• Because after all this time nothing you make can live up to the potential that you've built up in your head.
• Because your not excited about it like you were 2 years ago.
• Because you went out and bought the big-box-store equivalent of it.
• Because you've started and finished and started dozens of other projects in the meanwhile and you need to work on those first.
• Because your friend had the same idea and finished their version months ago and you know you're just not as detail oriented as they are, and yours is going to be haphazard at best.

But all that is OK because today is the day! You've had coffee, and got nothing better to do! You're not going to put the bloody thing off anymore and to hell with the quality! You're sick of looking at it, at moving around a great big unused pile of potential and you're ready to GET CRAFTING.

So carefully you set up your work area. Lovingly readying the martial and ever so carefully making the first cuts, basting your edges, pinning your seams ...It looks like this might work out after all!

...Yep it's going well!

...Sorta.

...Kinda

...Well maybe if you fudge this seam...

Nobody is going to look at it this closely right?

Then comes the point in this project where all your doubts just sort of crystallize. This project sucks. You went at it in a desperate kamikaze hoping to pull some skill and inspiration out of your caffeine addled brain. But really, even as you desperately try to sew a straight seam, you know the truth.

You will never finish the project.
You need to stop now and salvage what resources you can.
You are teetering on the edge of sanity.
You need to stop. right. now.

If you're lucky the power will go out, a hurricane will strike, or the universe will end. Otherwise you've just spent your weekend on a piece of crap.