Edwin Bliss once said, “The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time.  

I wonder how many people have tried quilting and became discouraged and quit because their quilt did not come out perfectly.  I'm beginning to think that quilting might be similar to golf. A golfer can spend a lifetime learning all of the subtleties of the game and perfecting their swing and never achieve a perfect game. A breeze, a muscle twitch, a distraction, and the perfect game is lost. And yet, it is the desire to improve that pushes the golfer. There has to also be a tolerance for the self's imperfection that allows the golfer to continue. Although I don't understand the desire to smack a little white ball into a little tiny whole far, far away; I do understand that love of personal challenge and the joy of seeing improvement -- even if no one else sees it.

I have made more than 80 quilts and have yet to finish a quilt without a mistake somewhere.  Sometimes I look at the binding of my first year's quilts and cringe. Sometimes I look at quilts done previously and try to recall HOW it went so well because its a mystery to me now. I think the best quilts are combinations of skill and inspiration, AND mistakes, and sometimes, the thing that really seems to make the quilt special are the imperfections.  Any old computer can make a quilt.  I love my computerized long arm and use it all the time, but lately I've been adding a few hand guided swirls here and there just to make sure the quilting does not look too perfect. Perfect does not look good on quilts! What seems to make quilts beautiful is the wonky patch, the backwards swirl, the slight asymmetry. You can definitely tell a human quilt from a computer quilt and there is no doubt to me which is more beautiful.  

As someone said at the HandiQuilter retreat I attended in October... if you make a mistake once...its a mistake, if you repeat it three times, it's a design element! 

What do you think my fellow quilters?  Have you made a perfect quilt yet?  How many quilts did it take to get there??????