My New Skill?

The problem with trying new things is that a person's first attempts are generally terrible. Rarely does a person pick out a skill she desires to develop and find that, low and behold, she is an expert from the start.

Machine-quilting is not proving to be easy. I have spent a few hours ripping out stitches that looked wayward and messy, only to find that the next set of stitches wasn't much better! Now I am 1/3 of the way through quilting my project and I am debating whether or not to rip again or to let this quilt be my "mess-up, the one I will look at years from now and laugh at.

There is a positive side to this: since machine-quilting is now considered artistic and an acceptable way to finish a quilt, I won't need to spend months hand-quilting with calloused fingers. Ah yes, something to be thankful for--something to be very thankful for!