A little honesty

It was a long day today.  Not my regular work day, but I traded and worked today because I have jury duty on Thursday.  I started thinking at work about what different kind of quilters there are.  What kind of a quilter are you?  Are you the type that it just happy to have your project done?  You see whatever imperfections in your quilt as just a part of the quilt?  There is no perfection in life, so why should your quilt be perfect?  Are you the type that agonizes over fabric choices and rips seams out because they don't match perfectly?  When you're doing the quilting, does it have to just be perfect, or do you accept human?  Hmm ... if you know me, then you know what kind of a quilter I am.  But for those of you that don't ... well ... when I piece, I am very precise, but I know that no matter how hard I work at it, something is going to be off.  If I get the whole top put together and there is a block out of place ... so be it, it's going to stay like that.  So while I work really hard at doing it all just so, I realize that things are going to happen.  I think I'm getting better at that.  Here is my latest challenge ... my machine quilting is just something I am agonizing over.  If it is not perfect, I am just down on myself.  Now like I mentioned in another post, someone made a comment to me that made a lot of sense.  There is no "one" right way to quilt any quilt ... possibly 400 different things would look right on it.   I will struggle with what to put on a quilt, then finally come up with something, quilt it and think ... oh, I wish it wasn't such a pain because I would rip it out!  I constantly doubt myself .. there are so many wonderful and creative, talented quilters out there.  I find myself comparing my work to their work.  Not a good thing to do ... you are always going to find work better than your's ... someone prettier than you are, richer than you ... you get my point.

So I am trying to learn to be kinder to myself.  I'm reading a book right now called "The Secret," and it has some very good life lessons in there.  What you throw out into the universe you get back.  Hmm ... what happens when you constantly criticize what you do and think you aren't good enough?  So I'm trying to practice throwing positive thoughts out there.  I must admit that when it comes to quilting for others, I am much harder on myself than when I am just quilting for myself.  But that probably makes sense, right?

Alright, so that's my honesty for the day!  Now along a totally different note ... I'm going to throw a blog out there once a week that I think you might enjoy.  I love surfing the web and have found lots of wonderful blogs that people recommend.  I love the computer world and what it has given quilters ... it is so fun to see what everyone does.  My blog for you this week is ......................... http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/.  I love this lady's blog.  She's just a regular person (mom) like me, and she has great ideas.  Tutorials for different things, and she has just redone her sewing room.  I loved to see the pictures of her rooms.

And now because you can't have a blog post without a picture .... here is me and my family in Australia last summer ... now that makes me smile!