Weekly Reflection- Week 2

I had another enjoyable week working on my quilt. Just like last week, Deb was a huge help and showed me many new cutting, ironing and sewing techniques. Deb showed me how to hand stitch, as well as use both straight and zig zag stitches with the machine. My favorite was hand stitching especially because it is a very valuable skill to have in life.
I am very satisfied with my final product, and despite a few bumps along the way I am surprised at how smooth it went. I think that Deb and I were so successful do to her experience and knowledge on what would be the best type of quilt to make with our given materials and fabrics. She helped me tremendously along the way by showing me exactly what should be done, and allowing me to do it in a way that worked best for me.
I put forth my best efforts in order to make the quilt appear to the best of my ability. Throughout the sewing process especially, I made a few mistakes that I could have left alone, but Deb and I decided that I should go back and fix them in order to make the quilt look its best. If I were to come back to see the quilt hanging and notice these mistakes, I realized that it will really bother me if I leave them untouched. I figured that although someone else may not notice these, I wanted to go back and fix them in order to feel more accomplished with my own work. At times, I became very frustrated with myself when making silly mistakes such as sewing together both sides of the quilt without knowing it, or melting the fusing paper while ironing it. An example of this is when I didn’t realize that I had a layer of the quilt folded under the layer that I was sewing, causing me to have to go back and rip out all of the seems and start over. Another mistake that I made was when I put all of the pins in surrounding the border facing the wrong direction, so I had to go back and re pin every single one of them. Deb would simple say “take a deep breath” and she shared many stories of mistakes she had made on projects while sewing. Deb remained very patient with me and helped me fix these simple mistakes.
Throughout this week, I have become very confident with using a sewing machine. I feel that I have learned a large amount about quilting and sewing. Sewing is a great skill to have in life and I am happy to feel confident in doing it on my own. I hope to be able to make another jersey quilt in the future. I look forward to presenting my quilt to the community on Thursday!