Doing Something Difficult

I believe I told you about the quilt I was working on. Way back...  Nope, not the one from August 2012. Haven't touched that one. Okay, I can't find the post with this particular quilt. But I feel like I did tell you about it. In December or so of last year. So, a year and a half ago.

Well! I finished it!

And, like typically happens when you try something still pretty new and kind of difficult, I learned some things about myself.

Well, and I learned some things about that minky fabric that feels so nice. Spoiler- minky fabric is so very horrible. Because it stretches and makes everything uneven. Ugh. If you look at the quilt from far away while someone shakes it, you can't tell how uneven my rows truly are... so we'll still call that a success.

{Quilters out there- you may want to shake your computer a little so your quilting sensibilities aren't assaulted by the pictures of my quilt.}

I hadn't touched this project in months. The front was almost completely finished, but I still had to quilt and bind it. And so it sat in a little bag in the closet of the sewing room/office, all sad and lonely.

See, first, I was busy. For a couple of months, balancing home and work filled up the majority of my time, and quilting simply wasn't a priority. We've all been there, right?

But secondly, while I really enjoy quilting, it's hard. Well, at least, for me it is. You're probably a pro-quilter, rolling your eyes at me and my minky troubles. But for me, a novice with almost no experience, it's hard. So I avoided it.

We had a group of quilters here at Camp one weekend, and I remembered the lonely quilt. And I thought maybe I could ask for some help or pointers or something. Something to make it easier. So I quit avoiding and finished up the front (which isn't perfect, but is the part I struggle with the least), and brought the whole thing to the ladies to beg for suggestions.

Do you know what they told me? They said I did a great job, and that I was done! My little creation was ready to go off to be quilted by a professional.

I had planned on quilting and binding it myself, and when I told one of the quilter ladies that, she said, "Oh! That part is really hard." 

I ended up taking the quilt home, and I finished the quilting and binding myself- and the project that was in limbo for a year and a half was all finished in three days. Why the sudden determination?

She said that what I was doing was hard, 

 and She told me I was doing a good job.

That made all the difference. See, just the fact that I was validated, that someone with experience and know-how told me that I was doing something difficult, made me feel like maybe I wasn't so incompetent. Like maybe I wasn't alone.

What a wonderful gift of community- to feel like we're not alone, to be told that we're doing something that's difficult.

That can really make all the difference. Being acknowledged like that can give us strength to keep going.

So, if you know someone who is having a hard time, tell her so. A teenager fighting to stay pure? A newlywed figuring out the "marriage" thing? A woman with a newborn? A work-outside-of-the-home mom? A stay-at-home-mom? That's hard! Tell her. It may help her keep going.

Piecework

Our stories are long and complex and difficult in spots.

We're made up of the people we've loved, the things we've seen and done and read. We pick up experiences and lessons along the way and carry them with us. Some of those lessons are painful or ugly, some are full of joy and peace.

But we know, just the same as a quilter putting together a masterpiece, block by block, that ultimately, our Father uses each and every part of it for our own good. All those pieces come together to make something He designed, something beautiful.

We're just piecework- right now it looks like a jumbled mess. Someday, we'll be a masterpiece.

This post is linked to Amateur Nester.

Community and Heritage and Friendship and Love

It's Quilt Week over here at the Happy Life!

Source

Oh yes, oh yes. The girl who doesn't really quilt is having a Quilt Week. Bear with me.

Like most camps, we do a couple of fundraisers throughout the year. The biggest event we do is the annual Quilt Auction. People (and churches, and quilt groups) donate quilts, and we do a big live auction.

It is so much fun. Seriously. If you ever have a chance to go to a quilt auction (lots of camps do them), you should go. The atmosphere is so great, and it's amazing to see the talents of the wonderful quilters, and auctions are just plain fun.

I always break out my "501 Quilt Blocks" book after the auction and dream about all the intricate quilts I'll make... of course, not even thinking about the fact that I have trouble sewing a straight line. It's a lofty goal.

Anyway.

I really do like quilts, despite my own sorry lack of sewing, measuring, cutting, and piecing talent. Quilting sort of hits on a bunch of my interests- do-it-yourself projects, frugal living, keeping history alive, heritage, and creating beautiful things.

My mother-in-law stopped by to view the quilts we were auctioning off, and it came up in conversation that she has a quilt from great-grandma, one that's still in progress.

Apparently, Zeke's great-grandmother began piecing it, and left it to her daughter-in-law- dear, sweet Grandma who had quite an artistic hand. Grandma did a bit of work on it, too, but she really preferred painting to quilting, and she didn't finish it either. Zeke's mom has worked on it only a little, too, so it sits still unfinished in a safe spot in the attic, waiting another generation to finally finish it up.

It's these types of stories that make quilts so interesting- the history behind them, the hands that put them together. Generations come together to work on something practical and beautiful. It's about community and heritage and friendship and love.



What family heirlooms or traditions exist in your family? How do you honor them?


  

Project.

After the quilt auction last weekend (yay quilt auction!), Zeke and I went back to our hometown to meet with an insurance guy and stop in to say hi to my folks.

First off, insurance. Um, way expensive! And kind of scary... having my own insurance means I'm like, a real adult. Yikes.

Anyway, so we stopped by my parents' house. I had the chance to sneak down into the storage room and double check that I hadn't forgotten anything I need. And I stumbled upon... this!

Yep. I started making a quilt! Fitting with the theme of the weekend, huh?

This picture was actually taken today, after I've been working on it for a couple hours. I found the quilt beginnings in a box, quilt squares cut and some already sewn into rows.

I don't know when I last worked on this thing, to be honest. I don't even remember starting it. Crazy. I think I got all excited during a Home Ec class in middle school ... I'm really not sure. But when I saw it, I remembered the idea, at least. It's a T-shirt quilt made with all the shirts from Girl Scout Camp, as well as old pairs of jeans. Cute, even for a misguided middle school kid.

I say "misguided" because upon finding the quilt, I remembered one small detail about making it... I didn't measure. Oh yeah. I cut out the squares by putting one T-shirt on top of the other and just snipping away. Tragic! This quilt is kind of a mess.

Being a fix-it person, after I found the quilt, I had to finish it. And, because I now have a sewing machine, I really don't have a excuse not to finish it!

Ohhh, pretty sewing machine!

And it feels really good to have a project, to be honest. I wanna get it done soon-- updates to come!