grammypatty7

Thank you Virginia. I was raised to be a perfectionist and very critical of everything I did. Nothing, I mean nothing, pleased my mother and she was so negative. It took me until a teacher tactfully pointed out to me that my son was striving for perfection and working at it too hard, that he needed to relax and enjoy life more and to realize that everything he was doing was fine and actually better than what most people can do. No one can achieve perfection, that's a reality of life. Realizing that for my son's sake, I HAD to change some attitudes big time and praise, compliment and encourage him - and he's one wonderfully talented, intelligent, mature young man, good husband, father, son, friend, etc, etc, etc.

We need to strive to do the best we can, most definitely but when we fall short; learn from those shortcomings or mistakes and next time around do better. It's quilting, not a life and death situation but it could be if we agonize to the point of givine ourselves a stroke. My quilting for me is therapy. My quilts bring joy, happiness, and love into the lives of my family members who use them daily - they tell me this so I know it's true.

I recently did a wall hanging that hasn't been hung yet. It's beautiful but it sure isn't perfect because it's a "learning tool" where I tried several new things and definitely did learn a lot. The wall hanging is labeled plus has a hanging sleeve in place but upon completion I realized that I actually like it better as a bed runner. No one will get it at this point in time but I bet that one day, someone will treasure it. One day I will find a place to hang or display it and know that too but I needed some space from it. It's beautiful and definitely not perfect. See photo.

It was intended to hang above the bed (displayed on the head board in the photo.) I felt it overwhelmed the quilt on the bed (QVC special since I can't quilt the double wedding ring yet.) After seeing the photo, (faults don't show too much) I realized it's as pretty as I thought it was but . . . I just couldn't put holes in the wall above the bed at this time (new house) so returned the rod I bought to display. My goal is to learn to work with doilies plus I needed to learn how to bind off the scalloped edge and did a perfect one on my round robin quilt. (click on my user name, go to bookmarks and click on Patty's round robin) The binding on a scallped edge needs to be narrow so obviously, this was a learning tool or practice piece. If it survives me, and it should, it could very well be a very valuable piece in it's imperfection. LOL.