Thursday, June 26, 2008

I Dream of Precision Piecing

I mentioned a while back that I bought "Sally Collins' Teaches You Precision Piecing" dvd in Albuquerque. I saw it for sale and thought to myself, "I want to do precision piecing! Yes, Yes, Yes! This will show me just what I'm doing wrong!" I might as well have added, "This is the magic I am waiting for!" When will I ever learn? Don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful dvd, filled with lots of good tips that are sure to help me improve my piecing, but the basic premise of the dvd is as follows:

"Slow down; verify the precision of your work after each step; redo anything that is imprecise before continuing."

Oh man! Why is it that something that is so fun to do the first time, is so NOT FUN to do the second time, or, god forbid, for the third time? I mean, seam ripping is not all that hard, or even that time-consuming. What is it then? The consciousness of one's own failure? The fear of failing again? The irritation of losing time and forward progress? What? This is a hobby, something we presumably enjoy doing, so why is rework so punishing? Sally says it shouldn't be. She tries her best to be accurate, but is never hard on herself when her work doesn't measure up (literally); she just rips it out and does it again (and presumably hopes for a better outcome.) She says we should not be measuring ourselves by how much we can accomplish, but by the excellence of our work. She doesn't have any easy answers, but for the perfectionists among us, her attitude certainly deserves consideration. Her serenity about her work is certainly something I could strive for. (Plus she has a really cool way of pinning to match seams that should solve all my problems!)

1 comment:

Bethany said...

Don't you hate when that happens with a DVD? It's not that you don't learn something, you do. You just wanted to learn more than one thing. LOL.

I think the more we know about quilting, the less we get from a DVD or book. You always get something out of it, just not always what you wanted.

Precision piecing does take time and some ripping out. That's where I love my rotary blade for that. If all else fails, paper piece it. LOL