What 4½ Years of Making One Coat Has Taught Me About Slow Progress

What do you do when a project takes years instead of months? Reading the comments on my last coat update, I realised that very few people were actually talking about embroidery. What many of us are really trying to understand is how to trust ourselves when progress is slow. This Victorian coat has now been in progress for four and a half years, and somewhere along the way it stopped being just a sewing project. It became a lesson in patience, perseverance, unfinished things, and the quiet work of returning again and again to something that matters. In this video, I share what this project has taught me about long-term creative work, slow progress, and building a relationship with perseverance that leaves room for both commitment and forgiveness. If you have a novel, a business, a garden, a creative project, or a dream that is taking longer than expected, I hope this conversation encourages you, because some of the most important things in life spend a very long time looking unfinished.