It's Complicated-WIP Wednesday

I have started and stopped this post so many times today.  I don't know what I want to say, I don't get overly personal on here very often but sometimes I wonder if by not sharing more I'm being dishonest in a way.  So hang with me if you will and I'll try not to go on and on but maybe share just a little bit.

Sunday night I managed to finish up my Swoon quilt top.  I was excited about the finish because its been a long time coming.  Once that top was done I decided to go back to working on my Complications quilt.  Honestly, I picked it up and put it down about 5 times before finally just walking away and going to watch TV instead.  I really like the part of this quilt that is done so far.  You might remember I am putting it together in chunks and so I don't really have in mind what the entire quilt will look like.  I think I was feeling frustrated because while I love to quilt I typically follow a pattern.  I'm not very good at just thinking something up and pulling it out of myself and into a tangible form.  I like to have a plan and I find it frustrating when that plan changes.  Okay-yes you can laugh out loud now, I understand that plans rarely work and that part of life is adapting and modifying the "plan."

I was really struggling though with what to do next.  See I'm not particularly fond of all of the blocks in the original quilt.  They are all lovely and I don't mean to detract from what someone so graciously designed and then shared with me.  I am grateful because I don't think I ever would have made this quilt without that starting point.  But I just don't want my quilt to be exactly the same.  Of course it never would have been because of the difference in quilting, fabrics, and just general thought process but I was having a hard time with giving myself permission to do it differently.

Then on Monday as I was sitting in my sewing room crying listening to the news reports about Oklahoma and just being mad in general about how much hurting there is right now in the world I felt silly.  Here I was being super hard on myself because I couldn't figure out how to do something with a quilt, because I couldn't just make a choice about what to do next.  Here I was getting frustrated with myself and wanting to put the quilt away again when there was this going on in the world around me.  So while this quilt is not only complicated it is also forcing me to learn.  Not only techniques but about myself.  So maybe in the end I will have a beautiful quilt or maybe not but at least I will have learned along the way and I guess that is what matters.  After all if we aren't learning then what's the point of the experience.

Thanks for stopping by to visit and for listening.  Be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is working on this week  Hopefully you will find something that makes you want to learn more.

Edited to Add:  Looks like there is no link up for WIP Wednesday today.  Thanks for reading a long and be sure to check back next week.