let's get one thing straight, right off the bat. write this down and stick it on your sewing machine and mirrors:
YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE!!!!!
no ifs, no buts, no how!
if you take great care with your piecing, i'll bet it "speaks" for itself and your quilts are beautiful just as they are. i'm a bit of a minimalist myself when it comes to the quilting phase. on the one hand, i love all the ornate motifs and also wish i had either the time and energy to hand quilt the complex stuff OR the skill to do it by machine in freemotion. well ... i don't have the time; i don't have the energy; and i sure as heck don't have the freemotion skills. yet. all that will come with time and practice.
in the meantime, i do exactly as you do, which is to say i do what my time, energy and skills allow. i do a lot of my quilting one block at a time, or in sections. that way, if i want to machine quilt something complex, i can follow the lines using a regular foot - usually an open toe - without having to wrassle huge wads of quilt as i twist and turn and loopedy loop.
if you have made it all the way through a quilt to the "somebody has it, uses it, and loves it" phase then
YOU ARE without question A SUCCESS!!!!!
listen to Esther, share54. she's got the right idea. :wink: