I think it’s time for a little bit of sewing therapy again.

We always look at other people’s work through very different glasses. When you see textile creations at exhibitions, in the magazines or online what you see is the end result – you don’t know how many attempts that person had at that technique, you don’t know how many stitches had to be unpicked, how many pieces had to be cut again or all the other things which went wrong.

In other words, you don’t’ know what happened in the sewing room! And that is the advantage of pieces we see without their maker being present. Nobody is there to spoil them for us … to point at what went wrong, tell us about all those things which were planned to be different, how they wandered off the original pattern or to point the tiniest mismatching of the corners.

Instead, we can enjoy the quilt or wall hanging just the way they are! Just like God made us all unique and perfectly imperfect, so do we create things which are unique and perfect thanks to their imperfections. Having no explanation of the piece we will probably see all those “things-gone-wrong” as a remarkable designer choices, as things we wish to come up with in our creations.

So next time when you make something for someone or are showing your nearly finished quilt to your visitors or friends, leave all that happened in the sewing room in the sewing room. Tell them how you enjoyed making it, how much you’ve learned and when they praise it, take all the praise in with a deep breath and while breathing out only allow THANK YOU to come out.

You deserve the praise!! For every stitch you made and especially those you unpicked! You deserve the praise because you quite likely stepped out of your comfort zone and made something you never made before. You deserve it because you spent time, energy and love making something. You deserve it because you made something unique, something perfectly imperfect.

It doesn’t matter how many things went wrong or how many things could have been better – it doesn’t change the fact that somebody likes it enough to pay you a compliment, so take it all in and say THANK YOU and leave all that happened in the sewing room  in the sewing room!

Thank you for reading

Vendulka