Focused day #2.......

You know that fabric that just doesn't quite "fit" the quilt but you feel like you have to use it. You bought it, it was supposed to be in the quilt. The manufacturer had it in the collection and yet it still seems "off" to you. 

Often times we get hung up on the way the quilt was "supposed" to be. Just like the picture, just like the vision in our head. When in reality, the light may be a little different, the flow may not be just as pictured. And I, like you, can get stuck on that. And generally it creates nothing but unrest. In me and by transference, in the quilt. I once did a quilt for a fireman. He had worked at many stations in his young life and had MANY t-shirts from different stations. He wanted a t-shirt quilt that would use all the varying patches on the t-shirts from all the fire stations. And I diligently went about putting this quilt together, having never done a t-shirt quilt before. And NOTHING about it seemed right. I couldn't get the frames around the patches the way I wanted. Couldn't find the perfect frame for each patch. Couldn't get the frames to look good next to each other.  Couldn't stop the quilt from growing into a monster size. I fretted and fretted. 

And then...One morning I came down to the sewing room/quilt shop and it was laying there on the cutting table with all it's pieces laying there waiting for me to start playing rearrange the puzzle again. I stood there looking lovingly on this mess, which represented a lifetime of memories to this young man. I wondered why am I fighting with this quilt so much? I wondered this aloud. Then I stood there just waiting for an answer.  And after an eternity it seemed, the quilt said to me, "This is so hard because you are fighting what I want to be. A big, complicated, busy quilt. Just let me be what I am." 

(Now before you get all worked up that quilts talk to me, it didn't actually say words lol. But I'll bet some of you know what I mean about a quilt talking to you.)

And in that instant, I understood why I was struggling so.  I wanted this quilt to be other than it was. Other than it was trying to show me. I wanted it to be my way. And I knew to stop fighting and let the quilt be who it was. 

So it is in life I have found. Often we wish things were other than they are. And in the wishing is suffering. Sometimes the acceptance is difficult too, but far less so than wishing something that wasn't.  So let your quilts teach you. They will if you listen. So will life. Sometimes the thing just needs to be as it is. The "solution" to your dilemma isn't in the thing causing the trouble, but in our unwillingess to sit with what is in front of us. 

Happy Sitting and Sewing Today,

barb