It is the wayward crafter's eternal question. Is it good enough or should I do it over?
I am still working on the baby quilt for Jordan's baby. I was a little disappointed with the front because not every angle matched perfectly. I was extra careful in the back. I picked out seams and recut and squared up. And guess what. Yep, still not perfect.
When do you decide your product is good enough and when do you decide you must redo it? This was my dilemma when I was doing free motion quilting on the quilt. I can sew for about an hour on one bobbin. After one bobbin change, I didn't change my thread tension back to where it needed to be. When that happens, the top thread shows on the bottom of the quilt too much. It makes the stitches feel rough. I didn't realize this until the next time I changed the bobbin--an hour of free motion quilting later.
Was it good enough? Did I want to take out that much stitching?
I decided I did. It took as longer to pick it out than it did to put it in. What a pain!
All those little dotted lines used to be stitches. All told, it was about 2 square feet of stitching or about this much thread.
I am getting ready to do it over now and I don't regret my decision at all. I know I will be much happier with the result.
In this case, I decided to pick out, but earlier I decided not to redo the angles in the quilt that weren't perfect. I don't really understand my criteria or my tolerance level for my own imperfections, so I am asking my fellow crafters what they think. (Of course this assumes that a few of you are also less than perfect, too.)
Here's what I want to know...
- How to you decide when your craft is "good enough?"
- Is "good enough" really good enough?
- Do you feel compelled to point out mistakes in your own work when others look at it?
4 comments :
You know, I don't know what my criteria is! I guess it depends on my energy and frustration levels.
I try not to point out what's wrong with it--not to try to pass it off as perfect, but to allow other people to enjoy it without my commentary. Julia Child said to never tell people what's wrong with a dish before you serve it, because that is all they'll taste. I say, same goes for crafting!
I agree with Jaime--it depends on how desperate I am to have it done. But it also depends on how bad it looks. Or in the case of your quilt, feels. I ALWAYS end up picking out stuff...and usually quite a lot of it. One time I made a dress and had to pick out the invisible zipper 5 times! This last time I read up on them online first, and that helped. Thank goodness...
I'm majorly impressed! Time is always an important consideration on whether I redo things, but also the purpose/recipient.
I pick out a lot, especially when sewing (or knitting, where we call it ripping, tearing, frogging or sometimes even tinking—knitting backwards). On my baby's shawls, I'd definitely try to fix mistakes—even silly little things like stitches "facing" the wrong way. But when I was blocking the finished shawl for one of them (not the new one), I discovered one of the stitches was coming undone. There was just no way to fix it, so I tried to make sure it wouldn't unravel farther. I hope it's fixed!
This is such a great question.
I would have picked out my stitches as well.
I can let some things go and others I need to be perfect.
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