There it sits. Staring at me. The world’s ugliest quilt. My friends prized race t-shirts and childhood clothes turned into garbage. Poorly cut and sewn, with added accents of day-glo turquoise and orange. And I said I would fix it!
After two months of planning, deconstruction and re-cutting, I began to rebuild. And discover more problems. No amount of interfacing makes polyester double-knit easy to sew. No amount of prayer can put fabric back on the poorly cut t-shirts. No amount of rearranging is going to change the color palette. So what is a perfectionist to do?
Get Back to Basics- Return to the original goal. The quilt’s owner wants something warm to snuggle under with good memories, not an award winner. I need to see the fabrics through her eyes and love them to life.
Accept Good Enough- These fabrics will always be 79’s vintage, often laundered. I’m not going to get the perfect corners. Seams will not meet, no matter how well pinned. And this is perfect. I have never loved a perfect house, it feels too cold. This will be a warm, comforting quilt.
Breathe- When it doesn’t look right, I resolve to breathe. Nothing that happens here is disastrous. I can rip apart and re-sew, or grow to love what it looks like.
Each Saturday I come to the machine, just like coming to the mat in yoga. I bring the perfectionist mind that I have honed for so many years. I come to be humbled and to learn that “good enough” often is truly good enough.
Here they are, the squares waiting to teach me more....
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