My finishes vs Your Finishes

Something that really bothers me is when I see it on FlossTube videos or other posts on social media is when someone says, “This is my x finish for the year, and it’s only April.” Quite often the number they are saying is something like my 30^th or my 42^nd finish. As if each of these finishes were of substantial size, not the size that they did.

I like seeing people getting finishes, but what they don’t really say is that their finishes are all small projects. Yes, small projects like 40 stitches by 40 stitches and a big one might be something like 80 x 60. I do enjoy doing these projects, but one of the things about these are the patterns better be either free or just a couple of dollars and available as a PDF. Patterns that are small and can be finished within a day or two are not comparable to a larger project.

In some cases, people that are saying how many finishes that they have for the year, and you hear that or see it on social media, and you don’t realize the sizes of projects they do it can be extremely disheartening to someone else. I know for me, I enjoy working on larger projects and if I can get even 12 or 14 finishes in a year, I am happy with that. I also work on full coverage pieces, so they take even longer to get finished.

Yes, I enjoy watching people get finishes, but I also realize that the sizes of their projects versus the sizes of my projects are very different. It’s currently almost the end of April and I can say that I have 2 finishes, and both are around the 130 x 130 stitch count size. So yes, I have some finishes, and I am happy with them, and I know that my stitching is what makes me happy. I am also working on a couple of other projects, one of which is full coverage, so it isn’t going to be finished for a while. So, when I say I have a finish, I am normally talking about something that is larger and takes more time to finish.

My word of advice is when you are showing a finish on social media remember that you know how many projects you have finished for the year, but not everyone else needs to know the number after each finish. Save that for the end of the year when you are showing all the finishes you have done and then people will see the standard size you do. It would be great if at the end of the year, you highlight the larger projects that you finished. With this, I am now going to go and work on one of my cross-stitch pieces and see how it goes.