On Giving Up

Today is my birthday.  My husband and I both took the day off.  My plans were to spend some time sewing and to spend some time with my husband.  I figured it was okay for it to be shlfish sewing today, so I was going to work on my mini for this month, which I decided would be a Trip Around the World from a kit I was given.

Several jobs ago, my workplace did a Secret Santa.  My first Christmas here, 2006, my Secret Santa gave me a mini quilt kit.  It was an incredibly thoughtful gift, and the thought of it has always made me smile.  Some of my coworkers took the "secret" part of Secret Santa very, very seriously, so I still don't know who gave me the kit.  (I got a particularly awesome pair of socks the next year and don't know who gave me those, either!)

Since I'm on a mini kick, I decided now was the time to finally do it.  I looked at the instructions last night, trimmed down the included fabric strips, picked an order for the strips, and made sure I had a general idea of what I would start today.  Except.  My machine didn't like the fabric, and I got lots of puckers.  I'm not in love with the combination of colors in the kit. The pieces are smaller than I really like to work with.  I wasn't enjoying myself.  So after about 1 1/2 really long seams, I decided to quit.  The idea of the kit was great, and much appreciated.  But I decided that my sewing time is precious and that project was not really what I wanted to do with my time.

So I threw out the pieces that I had sewed that were puckered.  I put the salvageable fabric in the bag I'm going to give a friend of mine who is starting a maker space at the library/media center in the elementary school where she works.  I saved the thread and the batting square, as I can use them for other projects. I recycled the packaging from the kit.  I'm not sure what to do with the book, since there are seeral patterns in it but they all use pieces smaller than what I like to work with, so for now it's still around.  And I moved on to a quilt top for Project Linus that was about 1/3 finished and is now a completed top, and since my husband was home to help me layer, it is ready to be quilted.

I'm pleased with how today went. I have a lot of unfinished projects, and more that I want to start, so working on something that I wasn't really enjoying wasn't a good use of my time.  I stopped before I got really frustrated, and I am really pleased with the top I finished today.