Schrödinger's Sweaters & Other Disasters

Last night I started and ripped out 2 new projects. That’s ok, it was only about 3 hours of my time. I end up ripping out over half the projects I start - Most of them (like last night) are undone before too much of an initial investment. However, when I spend weeks on something that ends up  misshapen and/or ugly, I want to cry.

Most of the things I make will take me weeks (sometimes up to 8 or 9 weeks) to complete. And that does not include the time it took me to figure out what the heck I was trying to do.

Here is my latest disappointment:

A skirt that looks like unflavored oatmeal tastes.

It took me over a month and I had such big plans. I even sewed a lining thinking it might help. Clearly, it did not.

Another disaster:

This pattern just let me down - I wanted a pattern that looked like leaves. I got a pattern that looked like acne.

I managed to rehabilitate this one: BEFORE

I put this one in a time-out, and then reworked the bust to make a decent design.

AFTER:

Rarely do the time-outs work.

I have projects that have been abandoned for years, sitting in bags and boxes waiting to be unraveled or continued. I call these: Schrödinger's Sweaters. They are both a completed project and a ball of yarn simultaneously.

Every completed dress I make, every pattern I come up with, every original design represents months of failures. And those failures are totally worth it when a project works out.