06/06/2026
I have become a help admin in the group "Felting Challenge", and talked a bit with the founder Debbie Penley about trying a new concept for the challenges. Instead of voting each month, we are given several options that we can also try and combine. The words for June are "puzzle", "repetition", "growth" and the concept of responding to an earlier work.
This post isn´t so much about the challenge itself. It is about the urge to create, and why so many of us have so many UFO:s. (UnFinishedObjects, for those who are not familiar with the term!)
When I get an idea, I want to start on it immediately. It is like an itch, a longing, an urge. Yes, I do have a bunch of dice goblins to finish, plus a hundred other UFOs and a thousand other ideas but I want to try this challenge idea NOW! My plan is to respond to this liquorice troll that I made in 2018, before I started Cariad. One simpler, smaller version and one more detailed.
This urge made me reflect over creativity. Sensible people might tell you to finish one thing before starting another. I have even said so myself to a friend who gets inspired to start felting projects, put them on ice and then start something new when they get inspired to do something else.
I am sorry that I said that. I didn´t understand something important, that didn´t hit me until today.
It´s not about finishing.
It´s all about enjoying to create.
I really wanted to start on these liquorice trolls, both of them. The ideas and steps kept swirling in my head. Had I then picked up my dice goblins and worked on them, while longing to do something else, they wouldn´t have had any love in them and love is what gives them soul. Creating them wouldn´t have been an enjoyable process - and if not, what is the point? I am way over the anxiousness I had in the beginning of my business, when I tried to figure out what peoplw might want to buy, and I realised that I did not enjoy creating for the sole purpose of selling.
What I want is to feel what I felt today when I started on the trolls, a deep joy and satisfaction. Curiosity, how will this take form? Where will my ideas take us, me and the trolls?
That is one of the reasons I have UFO:s - that I put other work on hold because I suddenly want to do something else. The plan is never to completely abandon them. I do plan to finish most of them. Some day. Or some year.
Let me know your thoughts about UFOs?
