Setting crafting goals to keep myself motivated

As much as I feel that crafting and creativity should be spontaneous, the trouble is that I'm someone who is easily distracted, both my own procrastination and by my surroundings, whether that's the state of the house or the demands of small people. I've written before about how I'm trying to make the time for daily crafting this year (and beyond!) and I thought I'd share how I've been setting myself little crafting goals to keep myself motivated.

Once I've made a commitment, I'm quite good at sticking to it. So when I decided that I was going to complete Vlogmas back in 2016 I made sure that I did, even though it wasn't always easy to get a video published each day. When I started my Sky Blanket project I was determined to finish it and I never thought about giving up.

One of my Christmas presents was a Christmas cross stitch sampler. I really like it - there's a festive picture for each letter of the alphabet, and it comes with metallic thread and little beads to sew in. It's a large piece, and as I don't cross stitch very fast it's going to take me a while to complete. So I've decided to set myself the challenge of completing one square each month. In January I completed Ornaments (because it contains the centre stitch) and in February I'm going to move on to Tree, which is another of the larger squares. If I can finish a square each month, then after two years I'll be very close to finishing. If I can get a little bit ahead of myself, which is the plan, then I might even be able to think about finishing it in time for Christmas 2019.

Another big project for this year is my Persian Tiles crochet blanket. The blanket is made up of 16 octagons, 9 squares, 12 large triangles and 4 small triangles, so 41 elements, plus of course sewing it all together and making the border. So far I've been taking a bit of a haphazard approach to it and I've finished 3 squares and 3 octagons, and I don't really have a deadline in mind of when I'd like to complete it. But I'm going to get a plan together to motivate me to finish all the different parts. At the moment I'm thinking that I'd like to get all the squares done by the end of February (they are easy and quick!) and maybe even another couple of octagons. It would be really nice if I was able to get the blanket finished by the end of this year!

I find that if I put a plan in place for something then I'm more likely to achieve it, especially if it's something that I can stick to with just a little bit of effort, not something unobtainable. I also enjoy the satisfaction from achieving something, however small, and especially if it's something that I've made an effort to do.

I'd love to know if other people do similar for their own projects!