Last year, I bought two end-of-the-bolt panels at a very good sale price that make up kids' fabric books. Quilts last longer than those books would, so I looked for a pattern I could convert and found one and simply started pulling the fabrics from my stash that would match. I don't need baby's quilts right now, however, I thought that having one before I need it, was a good thing.
Not sure why, but the directions were hard for me to follow last night, and I ended up ripping some seams and feeling frustrated with myself. Its not hard to connect A to B, or so it would seem. I wasn't reading the directions correctly and just making assumptions about A and B that were not as written.
It felt like I had to push against this problem I created by working on it later at night, and by thinking I knew what I was doing. If I was to get anywhere with this particular quilt, I had to slow down, let the directions sink in, and then agree to continue within the framework of the guidelines.
Many times with any activity I engage in, there are deeper lessons for my life to learn. Nothing any of us do is casual or insignificant, and if you are a spiritual person, everything matters.
Like this project, I need to push against my beliefs about what else is going on in my life and stay open to change. It doesn't mean I have to change my beliefs just because I am faced with a conundrum, because, sometimes the challenges I face in my life help me validate myself. Everyday I learn something new. I certainly do with quilting.
Was the lesson about slowing down? Maybe. Was the lesson about not working when I was tired? Again, maybe. Was the lesson that I was not fully committed to it just because there was no immediate need to finish it? Probably.
It would be so easy to toss this project to the bottom of my project container just because I can't understand the steps it takes to join the cut pieces. And just because I don't have a need for a baby quilt. It simply feels like the real lesson, as I understand it, is to be open to change, to remember and trust what I already know. I'd like to finish Step #2 this morning before getting back to the Free Motion practice pieces. Doing that will give me the sense of satisfaction that I can get beyond confusing obstacles however they appear in my life.
This sounds like a shift in attitude about following directions rather than being fixated about how you 'believe' the blocks should be joined together. Sometimes, I do my best thinking late at night when the house is quiet. Dealing with less than perfect instructions is a frustration for me as I prefer easy to understand, direct guidance in my instructions. As I get older, I'm finding that my mind doesn't comprehend well at times. It's like I see the words, but they don't connect with what I'm supposed to see when I read them.
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