A moment of Potential

As I start this post, I'm getting flashbacks to previous moments so similar as to think I've probably written it before. Oh well. I'm trusting you to forgive me, and perhaps to find something different in this occurrence of it, or my telling of the tale.

We start with a Sunday morning... a Sunday morning that began with a lie-in after a 2am wake up, and then became a late-morning trip to the shops for OH and Pumpkin (who likes the scanner very much). All of which resulted in: a clear 90 minutes with no interruptions, when the toys had been cleared from the living room floor (largest area of floor space without significant furniture), and the magical roll of paper could be unrolled.

Take that unrolled paper, add a couple of paperweights (yes, one of them is a lovely wooden elephant that I was given by a family member who had found it in India), a roll of greaseproof/baking paper, a Sharpie, and some time kneeling on the floor, and the result is: the pattern pieces for some #hudsonpants, a #laneraglan, and a #blackwoodcardigan, all traced at the appropriate sizes so that the prints remain unblemished and can be found a poster tube to live in.

For some reason, this moment, more even than the fabric being laid out on the floor in a similar fashion - that will be an evening this week, post and washing cycles permitting - is the moment that feels to me the most like 'potential'. It's a moment where the handmade item exists in concrete, defined form, but remains pristine. Plans have been made, fabric has been ordered, and the intention is there... everything is possible. 

At this moment, human endeavour has yet to blemish the record, by discovering that the stretch in the fabric is too great, or the size I decided on was optimistic, or I have problems with needle or bobbin tension on my machine, or, or, or. The ways a project could fail are legion, and in sewing there is less opportunity for revision and polishing once a job is started on what turns out to be in some way the wrong foot. 

One of my recurring 'problems' is that because I visualise a thing very fully before I start it, I can get to a point where I can see the straight line from where I am to the end, and in that final furlong, the mystery disappears and... I lose interest. I tend to rush the last 10% of a project, shifting from process to product maker, and if there a point in time when I'm most likely to mess the whole thing up? It's on the last evening's work, when I just can't make myself care about getting that final detail spot on.