Final week!! For this blog post, I have decided to tell you the last few things I did on this project, as well as reflect on the past 12 weeks.
First of all, to finish my project, I created my slideshow for my final presentation, as well as washing, drying, and ironing all of the pillowcases. I also took pictures of my finished project and pictures for each step of my process. This was relatively easy and pain-free (unlike the rest of this project but I will get to that later) so that is good. I folded all of the pillowcases and put them in a plastic bin, ready for donation. That will probably be tomorrow when I do not have school. Now for the reflection. Long story short: I did not enjoy this project very much. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed knowing that I was providing something for a child in the hospital, but besides that, this was no peach. I struggled under the pressures of school and time. I did not expect to have as many projects and assignments as I have this year. I tried to change up my routines, follow a different schedule, and other things of that nature. Some of those worked for a while, however, eventually I fell back into my old ways and I was back to battling a reoccurring enemy: procrastination. I told myself that this would not be an issue for me this time, that I would not let procrastination get in my way, but guess what? It still happened. I would make mental lists some days of things I wanted to do that day in my head, but by the time I finished schoolwork, whatever activities I had that day, and any other things that popped up, I was just so tired and I would lay down, telling myself that it would get done later. Well, when later finally came around, I was rushing to finish certain steps when I could have just finished them in a timely manner to begin with. I also do not want to admit the amount of time I spent talking to my friend, Madie, about this project and all that we could have done differently. We came up with so many ideas together after already deciding to do our separate projects. Ideas that would have been easier and a lot more fun, but still required hard work. All of that to say that this project did teach me about the importance of managing my time closely, and making sure that if I do commit to doing something for a decently long period of time, I better really enjoy it. Here is a picture of my finished pillowcases.
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I am extremely happy to report that my project is almost completely finished! I only have about 20 more pillowcases to sew before I am done with that step. The last step would be to wash, dry, and iron all the pillowcases to make sure they are ready to be donated. This week, I will finish up the sewing, the washing/ironing, and then I will start making my presentation for the class. I want to make a slideshow of the whole process, the materials I needed, setbacks, failures, and also successes. I will also include a brief report of what I did each week to show the timeline that I followed. I plan on taking the finished product to the donation centers sometime around next week. I called the donation center about a week ago to see if it would be at all possible to make some of the donations early. I wanted to do this with the hopes of possibly getting some pictures of kids back with their pillowcase, but sadly, with COVID-19 going on, they have to go through a decently long process to sanitize and distribute each item. This was understandable, but also a little disappointing. Now that I have finished about 95% of this project, with just a few things left to do, I can say I feel a sense of relief. While I enjoyed some parts of this project, other parts made me really dislike this Genius Hour. These parts included working while exhausted, getting behind on progress, difficulty managing time, and so on. All that said, I still am proud of myself and what I accomplished.
Looking back, I probably would have chosen a different project, and I would have liked to work with another person. This was not so I could rely on them to do all the work, but so we could hold each other accountable and keep each other’s progress in check. I feel as if this would have be beneficial to both involved parties. While it is too late to go back and change anything I did, I still learned valuable lessons throughout the course of these 11 weeks, and I am sure there is still much to be learned next week. After this week, there will only be 2 more weeks to go until I complete my Genius Hour project, but until then, I am just going to keep sewing my fabric. Last week, I had sewn 25 pillowcases, and I was able to do the same for this week. The sewing of these 25 pillowcases went pretty smoothly, and the only little hiccup was that I accidentally forgot to backstitch on one of my pillowcases, so the original stitching did not hold. This was no big deal seeing as I was able to just take the seam ripper, cut the threads, and redo it. Besides that, there were no other mistakes or mess-ups.
For next week, I am going to sew the remaining 20 pillowcases. I expect this should be easy seeing as how I have been going at a rate of 25 per week in the past two weeks. I am honestly really proud of myself for the continual, steady progress I have made on the sewing portion of my project. I kept on a good schedule and I was able to start to finish my project strong, and I expect that will continue. This step by far has had the least mess-ups, and it has been the most fun. It was at this stage that I really could see the project starting to come together. It was nice to look back and think of all that I had already accomplished. Thinking back made me more optimistic about the little that still lay ahead. Next week, I will also try to start thinking about the beginning of my presentation, as well as what will be in it. In my next blog post, I will include all those details, plus whatever else I may think of. I am again drawing a blank of something else to write, so I shall tell you a little more about myself. I really like science and math in school, but not so much social studies and English (sorry Mr. Barker ). I want to be a doctor when I grow up and live in a big city. I have no siblings and I like it that way (most of the time). I am left-handed and I have blue eyes. Well, that is all I feel like sharing. I am happy to report that this week has been an extreme success. I began sewing and I was able to get a great deal of pillowcases sewn. I now have 25 pillowcases put together. It did end up taking longer than expected, but I was still able to get done a good amount. It took about 15 minutes for each one. With this progress in mind, I would like to get the same amount done next week.
Additionally, I have very good news! I have officially received the donation from Jeanette Harmon, my grandmother’s friend. She graciously donated 30 pillowcases to this project. I was curious about how that experience was for her, and what her motivation was for helping out with this project, so I asked her a few short questions about her process and this is how that went:
With the goal in mind of wanting to make more progress than ever with the ironing of my fabric, I tried to work quickly and efficiently this week, but I still did not want to compromise the quality. I knew I wanted to finish the ironing step this week, so I needed to iron 25 pieces to do so. This was more than I had done in a single week before, but I was confident in my abilities to accomplish this goal if I worked hard and did not let myself get distracted.
Update: I accomplished my goal!! I was able to iron all 25 remaining pieces of fabric which got me to my goal. It felt good to accomplish this, and I actually did this in a timely manner. I was able to finish this by Friday, which gave me the weekend to do whatever I want, as well as prepare for the upcoming week, It was in the next week that I would start sewing. I got out my sewing machine from where I had laid it to the side, and I put it on top of the table I was using as my workspace. I also laid out my scissors, threads, and the pile of cut and ironed fabrics from the weeks prior. This way, when the week began, I would have all materials ready to begin the next phase: sewing. I did enjoy some of my free time this weekend, but I also spent some of that time with my mother as she helped me brush up on my sewing skills. It had been a minute since I had touched the sewing machine, so I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. The hardest part to remember was how to thread the machine and making sure that the threads would catch inside of it. Without the threads catching, I would not be able to sew the pieces together. I used a couple of pieces of scrap fabric to practice my stitches and backstitches. After I figured out that step, the rest was smooth sailing, and I felt confident going into Week 9. This week did not go well in terms of progress. I set my goal at 25 pieces of fabric to iron this week because I knew that I would be busy with my projects and assignments. However, something I did not plan for was Hurricane Zeta coming and cutting off my power for many days. This set back my progress quite a bit because it threw me off schedule. I had to go to my grandmother’s house since my house still did not have power. With that in mind, I did not get as much done as I would like. In fact, I got very little done due to this hurricane.
I was able to get a little done at the beginning of this week, mostly on Wednesday, but I wanted to get more done. I was only able to complete 10 pieces of ironed fabric, which was 15 below my goal. I understand that my progress was not necessarily hindered by my poor time management and procrastination issues, it was hindered by some unforeseen circumstances. While this week was a bit of a disappointment progress wise, it was good in other ways. I had a very fun Halloween get together with my friends (with masks of course) and I spent some much needed time with my grandma. I also took this time to make sure I was on track with my project’s timeline, and I reorganized my supplies. For next week, I am going to try to get a lot done, no matter what comes at me. I want to finish ironing most of the remaining pieces of cut fabric, if not all of them. This way, I can go ahead and start sewing the pieces together, which I do not anticipate taking a very long time. Based on my previous sewing projects and machine use, I estimate it will take only about 10 minutes of sewing per pillowcase. This factors in possible little mess-ups and mistakes. Overall, I am expecting next week to be much more productive than the last couple. I hope to report back with much more completed. This week was a little bit of a slower week for me, but that is okay. I decided to set my goal at around 20 more ironed pieces of fabric, however, I only got to about 15. I worked on other projects throughout the week, and I spent a lot of quality time with my family this weekend. As per usual, I got most of my progress for this week done on Wednesday, but Tuesday was pretty productive as well.
Last week, I set myself a new goal. Not just one for my project, but one that would help me with any of my homework. I wanted to try to keep myself to a strict schedule to help with procrastination and time management. I really tried hard to stick to this schedule, and for the most part, I was successful. Overall, it really helped me stay productive and get my work done in a timely manner. I will definitely be sticking with this. Now that I have officially passed the halfway mark on this project, I feel pretty accomplished. I have gotten a lot done, and my progress is about where it should be. Obviously, there have been some bumps along the way so far, but besides those little hiccups, everything is going well. I want to finish the project a few weeks early so I have time to donate the pillowcases and hopefully get a few responses back from the kids and families receiving them, but if not, then I am still happy to have done this for them. I have not gotten any update on my grandmother’s friend's donation yet, but I should be receiving those soon. My grandmother eagerly told me she would donate some fabric she had laying around her house. I was so happy to hear this, and I eagerly accepted. I should be getting that fabric sometime early this next week, so I can go ahead and cut the fabric, iron it, and put it in the to-be-sewn pile. Finally, I want to try to set my goal for next week to be at 25 ironed pieces, but as always, I never know what the week may entail, so I guess I will see. This week went well for me. I planned on ironing some of my cut fabrics, but I knew I would be pretty busy with other projects, so I did not set my expectations too high. I mostly worked on my Genius Hour on Wednesday, but also I worked on it periodically throughout the week. I decided that wanted to iron 15 pieces of my fabric at the beginning of the week, so with that goal in mind, I tried to pace myself accordingly. Weekend Update: I was able to accomplish my goal, and I even did more than that! I got 20 pieces of fabric ironed down so I can eventually sew the seam allowances. I discovered that it took a decent amount of time to iron one piece. It took about 20 minutes. I tried to quicken my pace, but I ended up getting a little sloppy, so I slowed down and was careful with each piece. That decision welded must better results. I also got great news with my donations! A lady from my grandmother´s church said that she would be willing and able to sew me 30 pillowcases!! That number was greater than I ever expected and I was beyond grateful. She sent me pictures of a few pillowcases she had done so far, and I will attach those at the end of this blog post. They look so good, and she told me they will be ready in just a few weeks. For next week, I do not plan on having any big projects to work on, so my goal will be higher than this week's was. Like always, I will probably decide that quantity at the beginning of the week, after I see what my other classes have planned. I want to try for around 50, but I am unsure if that will be possible yet. *Side note: With this next week, I am also going to set myself on a strict schedule because I have been struggling a little bit with time management and having a good school-life balance. I am hoping that changing up my regiment a little will help me tremendously, both with increasing the progress I can achieve, and with having a greater amount of free time. Pictured: These are samples of the pillowcases sewn so far from Jeanette Harmon, the lady who attends my grandmother´s church.This week was a lot better for me in comparison to last week. I was able to stick to a little bit tighter schedule and I cut out 32 more pieces. This finished the cutting stage and brought me out to a total of 70 pillowcases I could make. It would have been 72, but I was not paying much attention when cutting a few of the pieces of fabric, and I cut the wrong dimensions, s those were unusable. When I had concluded cutting my fabric and counted out how many pieces I had, I was disappointed at the total. I remember thinking that I wanted to originally make 300 pillowcases. Through the first part of the process, I realized how unrealistic this would be both due to time and money constraints. I am now just happy to be able to give anything back to these children.
Next week I will start ironing, and I have no idea how long that is going to take. I am predicting that it will probably take longer than cutting the pieces, but I am not sure. I plan on being completely ready to sew in 4-5 weeks, meaning all materials needed will be cut and ironed. I do not anticipate the actual sewing process to take very long for each pillowcase. I am estimating the ironing process to take about 15 minutes for each pillowcase, but I will give an update when that number is more rock-solid. As for the rest of this blog, I am having a little bit of writer’s block due to extreme exhaustion and the inability to form thoughts at the moment. So for the remainder of this blog post, I shall tell you a little bit about me: I am 15 (will be 16 on December 12) and I love cats. I have a cat named Charlie. My favorite food is pasta. My favorite sewing project I have ever done was making a skirt. For that project, I did not use a pattern, and I kind of freehanded it, but it was fun and allowed for more creativity. The first time used a sewing machine was in 8th grade. I almost stabbed my finger with the needle. :) This week did not go very well for me. I was very stressed and had little time to work on this Genius Hour due to other assignments and projects. Most of my work done for this week was done on the time that we were given Wednesday. Besides that, throughout the week I tried to find little pockets of free time to make some progress on this project, but I did not have very good luck. I was able to find a few minutes each day, but it was not as much as I would have liked.
This week, I was only able to cut 10 pieces of fabric, which was 10 under my goal I was aiming to reach. I wanted to be able to cut as much as I did last week, which would have given me 40 pieces of fabric total. However, school and life got in the way, and my goal was not reached. I now have a total of 30 pieces cut. I am going to try to not let this discourage me, and I will try to pick up my slack next week and reach my goal of having all my pieces cut. Besides that, on a more positive note, I have had a lady from my grandmother’s church offer to donate some pillowcases. She does not yet know how many she will be able to do, but she told me she will update me on that number soon after she finishes sewing. I am grateful for her offering to do that for me, and I am glad she was willing to help me out for such a great cause! It makes me so happy to know that others are also doing something to give these children a little bit of joy during times that may otherwise be very hard. My goal for next week is to finish cutting the remaining pieces of fabric left, and then I will update the blog and give the total number of pillowcases I will have when I am finished with this project. To end on a positive note for this blog, I expect that next week will be full of great accomplishments and hard work. Hopefully, next week´s blog will speak of only positive things and more progress! |
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