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Old 05-24-2017, 04:17 PM
  #10  
Jennifer23
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Saskatchewan
Posts: 838
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Originally Posted by bearisgray View Post
When a person asks something like "Is this noticeable?" -

Why do so many people say, "no, it isn't"?

It seems to me that if a person asks the question, it is bothering that person to some extent.


If I have my underwear on backwards - I don't think many people would be aware of it - but I would be and it would bother ME until I changed it.


It is true that many "mistakes" are not that noticeable to a casual observer - but if it bothers the maker and is a comparatively easy "fix" - why not encourage the fix more often?
When people ask "Is this noticeable", I'm honest with them. I say it isn't if I feel it isn't. If your underwear is on backwards, I might not notice, either... In the quilting situation, they aren't asking if they notice, they're asking if I do.

When we are working on a quilt, we see every stitch being formed, and look at every square inch of it in the way no other sane person will. I don't believe in encouraging people to obsess over things that won't actually matter in the long run. Now, if the flaw matters (either artistically or structurally) I will encourage them to fix it, but I think most of the time we need to forgive ourselves the small mistakes and move on.

Mamagrande makes a good point - it's usually beginners who ask this question. I think that telling them it doesn't matter helps them "calibrate" their level of concern. You have to learn to live with some things being less perfect than you want; that's part of handicrafting.

There are levels to self-criticism. I agree, we are our own severest critics, and that isn't necessarily bad. However, people (and especially women) can go way too far. I don't believe in helping people beat themselves up over things that, in the big picture, aren't important enough to warrant that level of concern.

Originally Posted by bearisgray View Post
And another thing -

If someone says "no one will notice" -

the original poster has just been dissed and called "a nobody"
If I say that, I mean nobody to whom it hasn't been pointed out. I feel like that's pretty common in spoken English.
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