I’ve lots of theories behind the need to be creative on a regular basis. One theory of mine is that God is a creator, we’re here to become more like Him…therefore, the need to create and be creative. Another theory is that we (women especially) spend our days doing a lot of repetitive tasks–picking up toys, doing laundry, washing the dishes–that will need to be repeated every day and never are really “done” because you’re just going to do them again tomorrow. But having projects that have finite ending points…that’s where you get some peace in your heart at having finished something.

Whatever the reason is, I have a tremendous desire to create. It really starts to wear on me if I don’t get some creative time every few days…like right now. I finished the knitting on the Backyard Leaves scarf the day before Little Lamb was born and now it simply awaits some steam blocking and sewing of the two halves together. (Funny aside: I finished the knitting and thought to myself, “There. Now I can have this baby.” And that night my water broke!) Since I didn’t want to lug out the ironing board in my humungous pregnant state to block Mr. Leafy, I started another scarf with some yarn I had in my stash that evening…I even worked a row of it while I was at the hospital. And I worked on it for fifteen minutes when Little Lamb was two days old. Those were my last moments spent on a creative pursuit…more than two weeks ago. I’m getting fidgety.

I’m getting this antsy feeling to unearth my sewing machine from beneath all the whatever is hiding it from view down in the craft room and start sewing like a crazy person. I’ve seen some of the cutest patterns for tote bags, hats, quilts and little girl dresses lately…oh my goodness, would I like to spend an afternoon sewing without interruption! I know that I’ve got three quilts in progress that I’d really just like to scratch off the mental list of unfinished projects…

And the knitting–I’ve got yarn and patterns for three baby cardigans that I would really like to see my girls wear before they get too big, the argyle scarf (the book is in my possession!), a reversible cabled scarf for the Backyard Leaves recipient’s significant other, the scarf I started right before Little Lamb was born (perhaps I will call it the “Little Lamb Scarf”?), and a desire to make mittens. (Mittens in March? I blame it on Elizabeth Zimmerman and her “Mittens for Next Winter” chapter for the month of May in Knitter’s Almanac…and I blame it on Piecework Magazine’s emphasis on mittens in its latest issue.)

Perhaps it’s not a desire to create, but a desire to feel like something is finished; and I’ve just demonstrated the mountain of unfinishedness that’s lurking in the basement…bad Feng Shui indeed. Hmmm. Maybe I just need to grab the projects that are closest to completion and just finish the silly things. (Dare I even say that I cannot start another project until I finish a set number of In-Progress works?)

That’s it. We’re doing some creativity housecleaning. I’m not sure of what just yet. Off the top of my head, things that aren’t finished:

1. Backyard Leaves Scarf
2. Cheerful Baby Quilt
3. Blue & Yellow Quilt
4. The Ugly Baby Girl Quilt (I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish this)
5. The Little Lamb Scarf
6. Monogrammed Throw Pillow (oh, the calamity that it has turned into…it pains me to look at it and try to figure out how to make it all better again)
7. Patriotic Braided Rug (no motivation as I do not have a patriotic room to put it in until the basement gets finished)

Except for the last two items, I really could get all those done with relative ease. The quilts are pretty near completion, although I’m not exactly sure how far along the Ugly Baby Girl Quilt is. Perhaps I’ll shoot for finishing up the two scarves and the two non-ugly quilts.

But that brings me back to the original dilemma of finding time to do it all…

*sigh*