Silhouette Quilt Along – Week 8 – Quality Time with Thread

Hi there – this is Theresa, and this week’s post is going to be a shortie. One thing about applique, it takes awhile, whether small or large, hand or machine.
Some quilters love applique. There are so many designs that can be done. Applique can be the majority of a quilt, or just a portion for flair and detail.
Are you afraid of applique? I remember being very worried I was going to ruin my pieced work because of my shoddy applique. While I can say I have definitely gotten better with time and practice, I can say I have never ruined a quilt because of poor stitching.
When you step back and look at your quilt, you won’t see the minor stitch issues or jaggedy edges in the big picture. Here’s my story and lesson that happened this week. I was showing my husband a quilt I finished that used vintage hexagons from his late aunt. I appliqued all the hexies down, I took tiny stitches, I was careful, I quilted it with care and I sweated literally over it. It took two days! Forever!
When I showed my husband the final finished quilt, he said it was beautiful. I said, “yeah, but I missed a couple edges on some hexies and my ruler work isn’t even.” He sighed and told me I always do that. I always point out the flaws. So eye opening, I didn’t know I did that so much!
I put some thought into why I do this negative speak with my quilts. So many reasons: I don’t want to be viewed as a know-it-all perfect quilter, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and, the biggest one, maybe he’s just saying it’s good because he has to and it’s really awful. The mind is a crazy thing. Whoever said we are our own worst critic is right.
So, long story to get to the heart of the matter….applique your heart out, you can only get better, and it will never be awful. It’s a quilt!
This wasn’t quite as short a post as I thought it would be, but the lesson was so good….luckily I’m always going to be a WIP (work in progress).
P.S. Here’s that vintage hexies quilt
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