Sew productive!

I follow the blog The Purl Bee to see what great ideas they come up with for fun sewing and knitting projects (and I would love to go to Purl Soho if I ever get myself to NYC). On a recent visit to the blog I saw a post that really hit home, and the photos gave me a bit of déjà-vu: Now how familiar are those? These are my bibs! And my bibs are these bibs! Can't you see the resemblance? I feel like I was on the cutting edge when I made these bibs over a year ago. The Purl Bee is only now posting about them. Maybe someone from The Purl Bee saw my handsome nephew in his bib, or cute-as-a-button baby Ruby wearing hers and was inspired by my vision. Or, maybe they just happen to have the same book of sewing projects that I do. Regardless, I'm pleased to see that The Purl Bee and I are on the same crafting page.

The fabrics on the bibs from The Purl Bee are great, and definitely one of the reasons I want to get myself down to that store. I have a vision of a store where the walls are lined with shelves and on those shelves are reams and reams of fabric with bold colors and unique prints. And my mind will swim in an ocean of ideas - what to do with that fabric? Aprons, bibs, curtains, quilts, bags, napkins, table cloths, pillow-covers... the list is endless. Imagine what kind of quilt I can make with those fabrics! It would be even more wild than the one I'm making now.

On Saturday my aunt and mother came up to help me assemble and start to actually quilt my quilt, so it's only a matter of time before I'll be done with this one and need to move on to something else. We got the quilt assembly done (at least to this stage, which is simply connecting all three pieces of the quilt - front, batting, and back), and I actually hand-quilted two squares. Hand quilted! It was truly a miracle. Tell me that this doesn't look like fun and you don't want to do it, too:

First, we taped the back of the quilt to the floor to keep it in place for when we put on top of it the batting (the off-white material) and then the front of the quilt (the layer with all the t-shirts). Then, we pinned all three layers together. See all these pins? We had to make a trip to the craft store to get more of them. It's a big quilt, and we went a little pin happy (but at least we know that the quilt won't shift during the sewing process!). Next we traced a small square into each of the fabric squares. This was truly a family affair, because look who we roped in to help us with the tracing! The small squares are what we are actually going to be hand-quilting, because this is what will keep all three layers of the quilt connected when we unpin the whole thing. My mother, aunt and I are trying to get Doug to help with the hand-quilting process. After all, he wants this thing on the bed as much as I do, and if he wants it on the bed before we're both too old and blind to see it then I think it's only right that he put a thimble on and help. Thimbles are cheap; I'll get another.

But, even if Doug doesn't help, I do have many helpers for the actual quilting process, some more helpful than others. You see me in the background, pulling my needle through the quilt, while Meg lays contentedly and takes a nap. There's something about this quilt that the cats love. Sewing the second square later that night was enough to charm both of the kitties right to sleep. It's going to be a long winter of cats and quilts, that's for sure, but I am looking forward to it. Because I really do plan to make another one (which is just want my mother and aunt want to hear... but at least they'll get a free meal out of any day that they come to help me!). This one can be the summer one, and then I can make another with more subdued, wintery colors. (Ask me how I feel about this thirty squares from now, when I still have forty more to go...) For now, it sounds like a plan.

Getting it right enough.

I recently started using an RSS feed reader, and my reader of choice was Google Reader. Why? Because it was just another link from my Google Mail inbox, and it seemed easy. And so then once I started using Google Reader I needed to find some blogs to track. I heard about Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist from Cavity-Packed, subscribed to the RSS, and here I am, a full-fledged fan. And her post from today confirms my fandom.

While I do believe that in order to be really great at something you have to have some kind of innate ability, some kind of natural talent, I, too, also believe that you can be great at something by just working really hard at it. Most people want to be really great at something, and so most people do, and should, work hard at what they want to be great at. What I am finding, the older I get, is that a lot of people who cross my path tend to work really hard at work. They want to be really great at their job and their career. And I applaud that, especially if they know that their current job, the one that they're working so hard at, is the one that they really want to be doing - or at least will lead them to the one that they really want to be doing once they're great at their current job.

What I would really like to know is when one knows that one is working too hard at something. When does one know that one's all, one's whole being, all of one's energy and positivity, is spent on that one thing that one wants to be great at, and when does one decide to either a) give in and stop trying to be great, or b) refocus some energies? I feel like I am trying to be good at my career (despite the fact that I'm certain that my current job isn't the one I want to be in long term (or even short term, but that's not something I choose to get into here)), and I also feel like I want to be great at all of my outside interests, but I don't feel that there's enough of me to go around. There's not enough of me and my time to focus on all of these things, to practice at them, to give them enough attention to be great. Or to be what I consider great. You know, it's that whole work-life balance thing, except that in this case it's just a life balance, I guess, because when you boil it all down it all is work, really.

This must be why people try to turn their "outside interests" into their career. How else can you do it all and do it well? Actually, I'm more convinced every single day that there is no way that any one person can do it all well. And by "it" I mean great career, great primary relationship, great high-level secondary relationships, great hobbies, great volunteering, great parenting, great communicator, great health, great passions, great... yes, great everything. There's just so way. So what do you let be good, or good enough, or even not so good, and what do you choose to make great? For me, I think that I would like my primary relationship to be great, also my career (which I'd like to be dealing with one of my outside interests in one way or another, just so I don't have to feel like there's such a disconnect between me and my work), but also my high-level secondary relationships. And my hobbies. I could live with just those four. But four? That may be too much.

This may be the age-old question of learning to know when to say when. And that takes practice. Which means tweaks and modifications have to be made along the way. I just feel like there's not enough time for all the tweaks and modifications necessary to get it right. Which is why I can't strive for perfection, because I don't think I'll ever really get it right. Just right enough. So please bear with me while I'm learning to get it all right enough.