Originally Posted by QuiltMania
I try to think of them less as mistakes and more as lessons in humility. The bear paw quilt I'm finishing for my nephew is a huge lesson in humility because it is horrible with tons of mistakes. But I know that he will love it and not care that the points are chopped off. It gives me motivation to learn how to make my points sharp. (BTW -- I'd love suggestions about how to keep my points sharp).
Most of my suggestions are accuracy related and are prevention ideas. I will put something together and post it soon. Most of it is just common sense and paying attention to detail. I am guilty of it too. We get in a hurry and oh well that won't matter and like a tile floor that is laid wrong pretty soon those oh wells add up to a lot wrong and before you know it you have a skewed picture because you (universal you not any one person) has chopped off points the corners are crooked the center is not in line the seams are bowed or crooked.
All these can be prevented if you are willing to take a moment or two to pay a little extra attention to making sure you start out with a square square and you make sure you keep a 1/4" between the point and the edge of your block. ( this is one of the biggest reasons people lose points)
I will put together some of my prevention techniques that I use to straighten a crooked seam or to tighten a corner etc. It does pay to take time to do this if you are looking to keep your points or have straight looking seams etc.
This is the reason I don't really shrug off mistakes because I need to look at them and find out why it ended up this way and how can I not do this the next time. I am a perfectionist tho so I probably go farther than most to straighten the picture before I am satisfied with what I am putting out there.
I sell my stuff and I feel I need to do my best on it. But that is a subjective idea. What i consider the point where I stop fixing things is not the place others would stop fixing or maybe even start to begin with!