Self Preservation

It's been crazy the past month.  I've been on overload as I'm doing too much but can't seem to stop.  It's also been those days where the more you look at things, the more overwhelming they are.  Then if you walk away, all you can think about is the stuff you walked away from.  I can't win.

I think all of us have this built-in fear of "what if it's not good enough and people laugh at what I do?"  It's not about the "quilt police" or a competition, it's about self-preservation.  If you deal with a mental illness, you are always switched on to this idea and it's hard to turn off.  If it's really bad, it turns into paranoia (that's NOT fun) making life extremely difficult.  I'm at quilting paranoia.

I have been paranoid obsessed over this "My Tweets" quilt for the past few weeks.  I want it perfect even though my standards of perfection are way beyond normal standards.  I want the perfect color combination and haven't been able to trust my instincts.  I really wanted the stitches to be invisible, but no matter what I did with THREE machines, I couldn't make it work.  I had to "settle" for a satin stitch.

Then I wanted the PERFECT satin stitch and went through those machines again.  Then I wanted the perfect thread with the perfect colors.  I had to "settle" for Mettler as I didn't have the ability to match colors online.  As I was sewing, I couldn't decide if I wanted to satin stitch the colors of the feathers or just use one color everywhere.  I lost my light blue spool and have looked everywhere for it.  I could use a different brand of thread, but then what if it looks out of place?  Am I driving you mad now?

Then should I satin stitch the light blocks with light green (I couldn't find the color), the medium with a medium green.  Will I lose the light color green if it's outlined in a darker color?

Here's the partially done block that I did yesterday:

Now the fusible webbing is coming off from the fabric as I satin stitch.  Great.  I can't win.

Then today I thought I'd check out the new 1/4 inch foot for the Horizon.  I worked on my log cabin quilt and figured if the foot can't handle those blocks, then I'll stuff it back in the bedroom.  No way.  The foot works.  I sat and pieced a row and made a couple of blocks.  I put the regular foot back on and it hated going over the seams:

 
I was so excited to see the results that all my fears went away.  You know;  I'm dang good at what I do.  The satin stitching is just fine.  If I want to do the entire birds in blue, it's okay.  If I want to mix thread brands, it's all good.  A huge burden has been lifted and it feels good to be back to "normal" for now.