I kind of know where you are coming from. I wanted to make a 4 Patch Posey quilt for my one sister. She loved sage greens and buttery yellows. Do you know how hard it was to find the "perfect" shades of those colors? After a few years (yes years) of purchasing this sage or yellow in yards and yards of them - I ended up with not knowing which ones I wanted to use. First of all, you needed yards and yards of one fabric for the squares because you had to have a repeat so many inches apart and then you laid it out with 4 layers EXACTLY on top of each other. It kind of turns out like a kaliediscope (sp?) block. I kept putting off the cutting because what if I messed it up? She gets sick. Very sick. While waiting for an approval for a gall bladder MRI to be approved, she went in to a gall bladder attack which in turn made her collapse. While waiting for the next morning to have the gall bladder taken out, a gall stone popped out and hit her pancreas. Within minutes she was put on a ventilator for at least a week where her body was basically shut down. Her odds of survival? About 22%. I told her (even though she was out) that she had to get better because I had a quilt for her. I went home and grabbed some scrap fabric and practiced. About 3/4's of the way through, I ran out of the buttery yellow I used for the sashing. She got a king size quilt and uses it every night. Is every block perfect? No. Can you see the difference in the yellows? Yes. But when she throws it across herself, she doesn't see any of that. She sees the love and prayers that went into the making of it.

Are you making these quilts for judging in shows for money? Or are you making them because you like to make quilts? They can be a source of comfort, a source of your love, a source of warmth. If you come across a pattern that might seem difficult, use scrap fabrics to try a block or two. And if you use your 'good fabric' and mess up, it is only fabric. It is supposed to be relaxing to sew and I think too many people out there think that these quilts have to be perfect.

I'm not saying to not try to do well on a project, lordy knows I have my seam ripper close by. But, you will never be happy with any finished project if you have to be too perfect. I also think that a lot of new patterns happen because of cutting or sewing mistakes and the quilts turn out beautiful.

Did I mention that her quilt got a 1st place ribbon at the County Fair (even with it's mistakes).

Hugs,