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A picture of a black board, on it are stuck coloured labels with writing. Overlaid is a blue square with white text saying - hand embroidery, how to manage a backlog of craft projects, www.embellishedelephant.co.uk

How to manage your backlog of craft projects

May 1, 2025

If you are anything like me, you see creations on Instagram, Pinterest, in books and magazines and want to make them all!

I currently have more than 10 projects I want to stitch, and some projects are quite big and ambitious. I felt I needed a bit of a system because I was just stitching the latest project rather than those that I’ve wanted to stitch for ages.

I use a Kanban board. You probably do a form of this already and just don’t call it a Kanban board! Basically it is a series of steps each project goes through. Each step has a heading and projects move from one heading to the next as they complete each step.

For example, the headings I have are

  • Idea - a project idea or design I want to stitch. This is a good place to park all of your ideas and it then helps you remember ones you loved but forgot about.

  • Prepared - all the materials for the project including the pattern or design have been gathered ready to start. I have this step as I found I had loads of ideas but some of them weren’t getting made as I hadn’t got round to sourcing the materials. When my ‘in progress’ pile is getting low I look at my ideas and shop my stash and then acquire the missing materials. Each prepared project goes in a bag with the pattern, fabric, hoop, and a threads so it is ready to pick up and start. This step is also a great way of using up as many materials as possible.

  • In progress - the project has been started. I’ve found that having this step has highlighted just how many projects I have on the go at once. Having visibility of this has helped me concentrate on getting the stitching for projects completed.

  • Needs finishing - the stitching has been completed and it needs framing and hanging. I’ve found that a lot of my makes have got stuck at this stage so by highlighting this it reminds me to get my finished works on display

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