A Journey vs. A Race

Thanks to those of you who commented about cross stitching being a journey, a relaxing endeavor, and not a race. That made me think about how I work and how I think. Believe me when I say there’s probably not much normal about the way I do anything.

First, I don’t get my feelings hurt very easily. There was a time when my feelings were hurt if someone looked at me wrong or if I felt like maybe they didn’t like my dress or my shoes or my hair and I’d dwell on that for hours, if not days. Those times are past! I’ve learned that when someone says something that I think is mean or hateful, even when they don’t mean it to be but I perceive that it was unkind, my feelings are rarely hurt. I simply think . . they’re wound up a little too tight today or . . I’m thankful I don’t think the way they think. So, if I show a piece I’ve cross stitched and every single comment says “It’s ugly!” or “You chose all the wrong colors!”, it honestly wouldn’t bother me a bit. It bothers me more when I show something that’s ugly and everyone says it’s beautiful, even though I know they think it’s ugly. I’d rather someone say something honest, even though I perceive it to be rude, than to wonder what someone really thinks.

I’ve also learned through the years to do what makes me happy. Remember . . I had a purple house once. In that house, I had a pretty dark rosy pink countertop and the cabinets were pickled with a pinkish tint. I chose those colors thinking I’d live in that house forever. I only got to live there two years and was NOT happy about leaving to move to Texas and if you’ve heard me say that I told Vince through the years that I’d move anywhere in the south except Texas . . that statement came about because of my first move to Texas.

Anyway, the first people who looked at that house bought it but they wanted us to change the countertops. I said “No! I put in what I like. If you don’t like it . . you change it!” My feelings weren’t hurt one bit that they didn’t like the pink countertops. I thought they were beautiful and felt bad or them that they didn’t see that beauty.

I am 100% sure that most of you readers shake your head in disbelieve at a whole lot of the things I do. If it bothered me, I just wouldn’t share all the craziness going on around here. I’ve always felt like . . if I’m big enough/brave enough to do the things I do . . then I can live with the comments. That’s how it was when we bought this house without ever seeing it first . . many of you thought we were nuts. I thought it was kinda nuts but felt like this was the house for us and knew it would be old before we could get here to look at it. Sometimes I wish it had more land but our gardening days are probably over and one of my main reasons, besides being closer to Chad, was to get somewhere that I’d be ok living if something happened to Vince, and some place where he would have activities and things he enjoys if something happened to me. Of course, with Covid, we’re sitting home doing nothing whether here or there but I hope Covid won’t last forever.

Second, everything for me is a race. I didn’t buy one chart and try cross stitching. I bought a lot of charts. After seeing the picture of the house that had either chair railing or molding on the wall used as shelving on which framed samplers set, I want that. I look at that wall every day and cannot wait to get enough samplers stitched that I can put them on the wall.

The Good Marriage piece . . I want to get that finished and on the wall before Vince gets back. I don’t know if it’s going to it in the frame I have that I had planned to use and if it doesn’t, I’ll have to order a frame so that’s the urgency on that project.

As far as quilting, I don’t know if I got burned out or if knitting just became so much more fun. In the end, I was doing occasional design work for magazines and they would send me the fabric they wanted me to use. It became torture for me. I only enjoy working with tone on tone and once I got fabric with a tractor theme – red, black and brown. And that was a project that had been sent to an old address, had to be re-sent and that made a tight deadline even tighter. I don’t mind deadlines (set by others) and I always strive to meet the deadlines but when it becomes almost impossible to meet and working with fabric that doesn’t thrill me, it really became work and not fun.

Also, I was doing a lot of free patterns on the internet and dealing with people who want more hand holding than I’m willing to do, or people who were not used to my basic instructions (i.e., make 20 half square triangles using Fabric A and B that measure 3″ finished/3-1/2″ unfinished) . . that became torture. There are so many ways to make half square triangles, surely even a beginning quilter and google it or just make them plenty big enough to cut down to 3-1/2″. Anyway . . I have no idea why I walked away from quilting. I do believe that no matter what we do as hobbies, if it’s no longer fun, it’s time to walk away. I’ve kept everything (since birth) so when I’m ready to start quilting again, everything will be waiting for me.

So, having said that, I never mind your suggestions because anything you think I need to know . . I probably need to know!