Quiltrospection

Sometimes I wish that I had never started reading quilting blogs.

I don't mean that in a bad way. There are so many things I've learned from quilty folks on the internet, so many ideas I have had after reading a particularly interesting tutorial or introspective post - I wouldn't take those back.

But the downside is that I start to think that my own work is...well...amateurish. I have my own tastes, which maybe don't mesh with the tastes of people whose work I admire. I worry that I am not hand-quilting "properly" - as if the QUILT POLICE are going to take me away for impersonating a Real Quilter.

I've mentioned before that I have issues, right?

Then there are days like today where I look around at my work and say, "You know what? I don't care if So-and-so doesn't like my colour/pattern choices. I don't care if the Quilt Police crack down on my hand-quilting technique. I'm happy with what I'm making."

(I just basted a quilt together last night, does it show?)

When I lived in Japan, I ate with chopsticks. I handled them pretty well, but I was always nervous that some well-meaning person was going to give me the "oh, you use chopsticks very well for a foreigner" compliment (which was the equivalent of patting me on the head like I was a child). After a couple of years, I mentioned that fear to my friend Mitsue. She told me, "It doesn't really matter how you hold your chopsticks, as long as the food gets from the bowl to your mouth."

That's my take on quilting now - "It doesn't matter how you piece/baste/quilt it, as long as the end result is that the top-batting-and-backing wind up stuck together."


Yeah, I'm not going to be an Internet Famous Quilter with lines like that...but I'll be making stuff I like, and that's pretty good ^_^