The Zen of Quilting

I finished a quilt top last night.  Yeah me!  And I am working on blocks for another quilt (that's one of my stars which was inspired by this quilt-along).  I am not too excited yet, it's only a quilt top.  I still need to quilt the darn thing and bind it.  You may need to check back next year for a finished product.

Because the truth is, I am horrible at quilting.  Well not necessarily at quilting itself, just the part where you finish the project.  In fact, this quilt top idea was conceived before Elias was.  

There are several reasons I am not great at finishing projects like this one: having an attention deficit personality disorder being one, the inconvenience of living in a small space being another. In order to sew, I have to actually clean the kitchen table off.  I ask you, besides my mother, who out there with small children and a husband can keep their kitchen table cleaned off? If you can, my hat is off to you.   In addition, I have to take everything out of the closet every time I want to sew, and I have to put everything back before the next meal.  It's a pain.  But wah, wah, wah.  I push past the pain.

Despite my handicaps, I am very drawn to quilting.  When I see what other people have created with color, shape, geometry, symmetry . . . I get so excited and inspired.   I love the idea that small bits of fabric can be carefully crafted into beautiful quilts.  Its art I tell ya, pure and simple.

As I was working on quilt blocks and this quilt top, I realized that quilting had some life lessons for me.  First, the art is in the details.   I tend to be a very impatient person, I am big picture oriented and have a hard time focusing on the details.  This drives Douglas crazy!  But with quilting, so much of the quality of the finished product relies on the details.  If your seam is not exactly 1/4", your blocks will not fit together properly.  If you don't pay attention to sewing right sides together - you're going to have to start over.  It's about precision.

Second, it is all about the process.  It was a really good exercise for me to try and find the zen of quilting and focus on the process rather than the product.  Translation:  I spent a great deal of time picking out stitches and resewing pieces together.  As I went along, I thought of certain rug makers in Africa who weave deliberate mistakes into their work.  The reason behind this?  to remind themselves that only God is perfect.  Amazing!  Can you imagine being good enough to have to make mistakes on purpose?  Not a problem here.  

So the lesson to myself - the sweetness of life is in the details and the process.  And now I promise myself that tomorrow I will take time to really focus on the details of life.  I will think more about my prayers, I will really read my scriptures, I will listen to my children and laugh at them, I mean, with them.  I won't get to see the final product of my life until it's all over - so I may as well slow down and try to make each day as right as I can.