Quilty Habit's SWC #2: Perfection

Last week I was behind on blogging because my laptop bit the dust, but I'm happy to report my new one has arrived, and I can finally upload pictures and type with ease again! Now if only I could wrap my head around Windows 8... if you can recommend any wonderful tutorials or apps that would give me a leg up on this operating system, please share!

First off, congratulations to Michelle & Sarah the #2 and #9 commenters on my last giveaway post! They each won a $10 gift certificate to Westwood Acres Fabric. Hopefully it was a nice surprise in their inbox during the big black-cyber holiday shopping weekend.

Next up: Perfection. This is such an apropos topic for me. I'm a perfectionist. Often I wish I wasn't - I've been working for months to reign it in as I delve back into sewing and quilting after a long break that's left my skills rusty. It's an arduous battle : P I'm such a perfectionist that it stops me from attempting things I know I won't get right, and when things I do start go sideways, it gets me really frustrated and makes me want to give up. Once when I was in middle school, I tried sewing a really cute skirt from this green, tone on tone, swirly print that I was absolutely in love with. Everything was going swimmingly until I reached the part of the pattern that required a zipper. I hadn't sewn one before, so I asked my mom to do it for me. She suggested I give it a try first myself and left to run a quick errand. I tried. I failed. And then I cut the skirt in half and threw it in the scrap pile! Needless to say my mom was surprised and quite annoyed when she came home. Not exactly the return on her fabric investment that she'd had in mind when I started. If I had just waited a few minutes, it easily could've been pulled out and repositioned, but my perfectionism pushed my patience right out the window!

see how I got distracted and shortened those back and forth lines over the fish on a few passes? glad I noticed while I was still in the block and could drop down and fudge a fix!

Fast forward to now... one of my goals for the SWC series was to try longarm quilting, which I did a few weeks ago. While I think the experience was amazing and overall I'm quite pleased with my very first attempt, there are a few mistakes in the quilting. Old me would've ripped them out or been devastated and given up on the project, but new me only freaked out for a minute or two, then decided it was really not a calamity and kept on going (the thought of paying $20 an hour to stop and rip stitches definitely emboldend the new me ; ) In the end, the small mistakes aren't very obvious due to the busy fabrics, they don't affect the integrity of the quilt in any way, and they're just a few lines in my story of learning and growth as I improve my longarming skills. Plus they add character to the quilt - after all, handmade is not fundamentally about mass produced engineered perfection, right? It's about thought, effort, and in this case, getting better as I go forward. (Plus, it's for my parents, and I'm quite sure they'd rather have a lovingly crafted not-quite-perfect quilt than have seen this slashed in half in the scrap basket!)

This post is linking up with the Sewing with Certainty series hosted by Jess of Quilty Habit. Have you been following along? Lots of great contributors have been weighing in as we explore the craft and gain confidence! Join in!

And now the last bit of business... I have to admit I was secretly happy that Pile O'Fabric's Stash Share had skipped a week since I couldn't upload until today! Here's the latest color combo:
(l-r) unknown, Sketch by Timeless Treasures, unknown, Glimma by Lotta Jansdotter, 2wenty Thr3e Camera by Eric & Julie Comstock

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