Very Frustrated
 

I feel like with every quilt I have made I get to a point where I am very frustrated. Being new to sewing and quilting I am not able to trouble shoot everything as well as I want and right now I know I have a problem but don't know how to fix it.

I am so frustrated. My mom who has sewn for decades told me that that is the charm of handmade pieces but to me I that isn't a good enough answer.

Sorry , I've just worked so hard on this particular quilt and it was working so well and now I feel that I'm not doing it right...

:(

Yael

Step away from the project and do something else for a while. Then come back and it will be all clear.

You may be too much of a perfectionist for your level of development as a quilter. I know that my skills development was held up many years by me being too perfectionistic. I would put a quilt away as a UFO when it did not meet my expectations. It's actually better to "power through" and finish quilts even if they contain mistakes. Everyone learns by making mistakes. I have learned to just keep going and, on the next quilt, figure out a way to avoid the mistake or do the technique better.

I have trouble with trying to make it perfect. I have learned that at a distance everything looks perfect and no longer sweat the small errors so I can get it done. Some days I'm stronger about it than others

Perfectionism makes for great quilts. It also makes for crazy quilters! You have to remember to let yourself off the hook - perfection is a journey, not an end. You'll improve with every project you do, and every mistake now makes you a better quilter later.

I believe I'll bookmark this post to remind myself that I said this when I get frustrated, too. :)

Oh my. You seem to have stolen my mom! LOL And my latest quilting project.

I got lucky (sort of) in that I found a way around my frustration for this project (using English paper piecing instead of machine piecing for the icky bits). So maybe there is another, simpler, or better-results way to do what you are trying to do? Google might be your friend there .....

In the end I believe our moms are right. Mine is forever pointing out that there are flaws in handmade and machine-made things, all of them, so why would I expect never to make any? and who would see it and comment on it anyways??

Best luck with your probably-very-beautiful project :) .

Learning to enjoy the process will help.

What are you struggling with, in particular? Maybe we can help you...

I can relate. I've sewn since Home Ec in the 8th grade a few decades ago but am fairly new to quilting. I started with easy jelly roll type quilts and then took a step forward to cutting squares and then a (tiny) bit more complicated piecing. I have learned something with every single quilt that I have made. Every single one of them. Mostly what NOT to do! I look at some of the quilts on here and don't ever see myself being quite that intricate with quilting. I always have messed up blocks or test blocks which I use on the back to make it more interesting and make sure I don't waste the fabric. Quilting is not the same as sewing clothes or other items and I did not expect it to be that much more difficult, but...I have found that I don't know as much about sewing as I thought I did! I've not had one quilt happen as planned. Yet. But I keep trying and know that the learning curve will be frustrating for a while. Keep going and move on the the next one -- every quilt gets easier in some ways and you get more experience. Just be relaxed and flexible about quilting, & adapt and overcome when you get frustrated.

So don't feel bad. Your mom is right about the "charm of handmade pieces." Every one of my quilts so far has had some really bad mistakes but I've still donated them to charitable needs and they've always been appreciated. So I'm going to do three things: keep enjoying the process, try to somehow compensate for mistakes so the finished quilt doesn't look too bad and definitely NOT aim for perfection. I focus on the recipient of the quilt I am making and that makes the (mostly) fixable problems I run into seem not so bad after all.

The quilt is a mariner star (my first) and in the same part of each block of a particular row of blocks there is a problem with my point. It appears that there might be excess fabric or the next block in the following row, which is pulled tight, might be too small for the space.. I hope that makes sense. I would take a picture but the picture isn't showing the problem...

So on my design wall it is mostly flat but somewhat lumpy and I know that the lumpy part is a problem...