Since, during summer, Friday is my FSF–Finishing School Friday, I thought I’d mention this idea of the Done Manifesto, created when “Bre Pettis, an inventor, and collaborator Kio Stark gave themselves exactly 20 minutes to create a manifesto encapsulating everything they knew about bring a creative vision to life.” (from Infographic of the Day: 13 Rules)
I read about this some time ago, but parts of their manifesto haunt me, as I read your blogs and hear you talk about the struggle to craft a balance between your time blogging/interneting and quilting. Here’s the full list; focus in on number 12:
Some of my “done” quilting is ghostly, existing on pinboards, and websites and floating around on the internet, and on this blog. You have to take my word for it–my quilts exist in real time, with the soft hand of cloth, quilting, and batting, sewn together with the whir of a finely tuned machine. I love reading your comments, interacting and forming online friendships with you (one of the good things about blogs!), but look at Number Nine.
This one notes that to dig in and get the work done is what’s right about things (“People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.”) All of these can be applied to quilting. One of my friends completed a quilt top, hated the borders, unpicked, resewed. Another friend had begun quilting her son’s wedding quilt, hated it, unpicked, resewed. Both of these quilters embodied Number Eleven.
Number Seven? Throw it away is sometimes good. And so is to give it away–to a charity, a quiltless friend. Some quilts are made to go out into the world and not hang around in your closet. And Number Six? Will I ever finish the list of quilts I’ve dreamed of? We all know the answer to that one. But that brilliant Number Thirteen nails down the reason why doing the *real* quilting and sewing and creating is so much more satisfying: “Done is the engine of more.”
I loved all last summer when I could easily post something “done” every Friday. It’s a different satisfaction that I get from quilting than from most anything else I do in my life. My quilting stays done. I can touch it, be warm underneath it, point to it when I hang it up on a wall. It defines me. It’s my favorite work, for when I enter my quilting zone, time just flies.
This week’s finish: Doll Quilts. I heard from Kim, my daughter-in-law and they have arrived!
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 
I loved reading and pondering these ideas, especially as they relate to my quilting life. Not sure, though, that I want to tell my English students that “there is no editing phase!”
Have a wonderful weekend!
That is an very interesting set of ideas. For the most part I totally agree – if we spend too much time trying to perfect each thing, we never get anything done. However, that said, sometimes it is all about the process and done is not the goal, so balance is good in doneness as with all else, at least I think so.
Awesome. I love this done manifesto! I’m curious to know how you feel about #3. I feel like I’m always in the “editing” stage. Editing my ideas, editing my goals, editing my level of “done.”