My critic was my mother. I saw some pieced quilts hanging on a clothes line on a drive when I was a child, that I thought were beautiful. My mother's reaction to them was a demeaning "those poor people, they have to live that way". She was born at the turn of the century to a very poor family, and hated anything that reminded her of Depressions, Wars, rationing etc.. I taught myself to quilt when I was in my forties, and had a quilt I'd designed hanging in my bedroom. On a visit she looked at it without saying a word, then turned in disgust saying I'd "cut off the points" on the border. Enough said. She never mentioned it again, and it took me ten years to get back to quilting. Of course she's dead now...but I can imagine her shaking her head in wonder how I could waste my time doing something so beneath her standards. I like it.
And I LOVE the COZINESS of it!!