Thanks for visiting my blog. I have a strong belief in the preservation of family. I love keeping records and memorabilia of our family and everything we do. I have created a website to share some of the wonderful memories I have of my family and of many others that I have been blessed to have been behind the camera for. I invite you to visit my photography website, while you are there if you would like to schedule a photo setting all the information is there. I am a Scrap 4 Hire, which means, I will gladly preserve your family history for you. All you have to do is make the memories.... When you are done here, please visit http://cowgirl-design-and-photog.smugmug.com/

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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Just Not Perfect

I have taken on the task of making myself and hubby a quilt!!! Over the years, I made several twin size quilts for my kidlets, but never a larger one and never one for myself and hubby. Last year, I saw some fabric, that I just loved, and it happened to be on sale...Go figure. I decided I'd make a Queen sized quilt for myself and hubby.

Little did I know what a huge task this was going to be. I love denim jeans! I mean I really love denim jeans. So I collected all the jeans I could to make the back of this quilt. I cute squares, and squares, and more squares from all the jeans I collected. Then I began to sew them together. While I was sewing them I didn't realize the stretch that was happening. Strip by strip, I was loving how the denim was taking shape....Now it was time for the strips to be sewn together...This is where the frustration started to set in. The squares didn't fit together, perfectly. In the beginning I was frustrated. I unpicked and unpicked, and then sorta gave up. All the strips ended up back in the box, and I didn't work on them for months.

One day, I had the thought that the quilt might look good with the squares misaligned. I started sewing strips together again. Finally the day came, when it was time to put the back on the quilt frames. Much to my surprise, and my heartache. The denim back was a mess!!!! It wouldn't fit right on the frame. I was heart broken. To make it worse, my family all knew of my disaster. Not only was I heartbroken, but I was embarrassed. Quickly, I crumbled up the denim blocks that only a few minutes ago I was so happy about, and tossed it in the box.

Fast forward more than a year later, because there isn't much to tell about a bunch of denim blocks collecting dust. I was impressed with how I could fix the blocks and make them work out. I procrastinated this impression for several months. Finally, this past week, I found the courage to try again. 

I unpicked the bad blocks and resewed them the way my mind guided me. Nope it isn't perfect. There is nothing about this quilt that is perfect. Yesterday I spent several hours, setting the quilt back up on my quilt frames. 

Here's a picture of the denim blocks...As I was setting the denim  back on to the frame I seriously considered throwing it away. I considered starting over, and figuring out how to right my wrongs. My dear friend said something to me. She said, "There is no right or wrong in art." My thought in reply, is this quilt wouldn't win any awards at the county fair. Although, my response is likely true, is my thought a thinking error or not????

Here is the reason I'm posting this post...First, I love my quilt. I love the flaws in my quilt. I'm not secure enough to show off my quilt, or enter it in the county fair. Here is what I learned from my quilt. I learned that the pioneer women that laid the foundation for me to be here making my own quilt. Their quilts are beautiful, but certainly not perfect. My quilt can be too. I learned, it's perfectly alright for me not to be perfect! Every time I look at my not perfect quilt, I will be lovingly reminded that I can create something beautiful and it doesn't have to be perfect. I love to tie quilts, I don't particularly like to quilt and that's great. I'm doing what I love, not what everyone else is doing. 


As I write this, I feel like I want to make another large quilt...I want to try again. I want to make it better. I want to enjoy creating and becoming good at being a modern pioneer in my own life.

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