I am in the process of creating a beautiful quilt for a friend’s baby shower this weekend. I love my quilts, and I’ve made a total of 6 over the last few years (two belong to my kids). I have been told by several people who say I should sell them and now that I have my Etsy shops I can. The problem is that I have this idea in my head that if I’m going to sell something handmade like a quilt then it has to be perfect. This makes for some very high standards. With my quilts, the satin binding on the edges is my Achilles. I feel that my work is less than perfect and so it keeps me from creating more of them.
So, I got this idea to take the current quilt to a seamstress and have her sew on the binding – only the binding. Yeah, I tried to take the easy way out. Only thing is that it totally backfired on me!
I have never seen such sloppy sewing. There were holes in the binding where the satin did not get stitched on to the blanket. The seamstress had put in an additional stitch to make up for I don’t know what, except that the additional stitch was a 1/2 inch from the original stitch. The absolute worst part was that some of the stitches went into the quilt squares creating holes in my flannel! It was absolutely unacceptable.
When I left the shop (I didn’t pay for the work), I was furious. But, I wasn’t furious at the seamstress, I was furious with myself. I knew…I mean I really knew…I could do better than this. How stupid was I to try to take the easy way out?
Thus, I immediately drove over to Hancock Fabrics and picked up a new package of binding (I had no idea if I would be able so salvage the mess that had been created), went home and started tearing apart seams. The results are fabulous! I have never been so proud of my work. The new binding looks beautiful and I even used a decorative stitch that really adds a little extra touch.
What did I learn? I learned that I will NEVER doubt my skills again. You should always have confidence in your work and even if it’s not perfect, it’s the little imperfections that make it human, personal, and extra special.
Nursery Rhyme Quilt
