No Good at Being Bad

I've always suspected this about myself, that I'm no good at being bad. Bad as in unskilled. I don't like being bad at things. I don't have to be the best, but it really grates on me to be bad at something. This hit home when I went quilting last week. I haven't quilted anything by hand since I was probably six or seven, and I'm sure my participation in that particular project was much less than what it seemed to me at the time. But last week, I was invited to join in a hand-stitched quilting extravaganza, and I was beside myself happy about it. I couldn't wait! I had this beautiful picture in mind of walking in and sitting down, chatting merrily whilst I stitched contentedly with my fellow quilters.

Well, I got schooled. Big time. By the prettiest, sweetest little white haired lady you've ever met. I was really, really terrible. Like, had-to-take-my-stitches-out-five-or-six-times-terrible. My stitches were uneven, too wide, too loose, too wide and uneven again. I stunk it up. No two ways about it, and for someone who tends to be a bit of a perfectionist, that's a tough pill to swallow. I told the lady who invited me I would not be at all offended if she took out my stitches when I left and never invited me back. But she was precious and gracious and told me she thought I had done a good job, which was just an outright lie. I hadn't. But I appreciated her southern manners that required her to try to make me, as her guest, feel good about myself in spite of my failure.

And I am going back. I'm going to persevere and let my elders guide me and teach me and mold me into a quilting maniac. I'm going to tough it out and get over myself and learn how to be at peace with being bad so I can become great. One stitch at time.

The Quilt: Grandma's Flower Garden

Me messing up her beautiful quilt.

She will teach me to quilt, and I will teach her how to keep her

fingers out of the picture when using a smartphone.