The Big Picture

Anyone who has quilted knows how easy it can be to lose sight of the big picture. We spend hours and hours focusing on connecting one 2.5" block to another and tend to see every little error. We notice where our corners don't match, where we accidentally rotated a directional block, or where we had to piece.

It's only when the quilt is on the bed and we step back, that all those minor details disappear. Because our faces are finally more than a foot from each piece, we simply don't see any small errors anymore.

As I was working on patching the sweaters, all I could see were the patches. I had warned my friend about how hard it could be to match yarns, but she said, "Oh, one is a generic brown and the other is black. They won't be hard to match." Hah!

One was an unplied tweedy tan lambswool in a sportweight. I substituted a handspun, plied, natural sheepy tan. The other sweater wasn't really black; it was a charcoal heathered grey Pendleton lambswool. I substituted Brown Sheep fingering wool in black.

Every time I looked at the sweaters, all I could see were the patches. They were tidy, but they were patches.

At Duff's though, when they held them up across the table and admired, I couldn't see the patches at all, even when I looked for them.

My friend Vivian has a wonderful saying she got from her mother: "Looks pretty good from a galloping horse."

As Christmas starts to make you crazy, don't lose sight of the big picture.

Who cares if you buy your Christmas cookies from the grocery store? Or don't rubberstamp and embellish your Christmas cards? Or can't manage to decorate 11 themed trees?

Are you loved? Do you love? Really, that's all that matters.

_______________________

Of course, this week I noticed a woman I'm not particularly fond of, walking around with her dress tucked up in her underwear. I briefly debated about whether or not to tell her and decided not to. Her underwear wasn't actually showing, and I sure was getting a lot of amusement out of the whole situation.

I'm still wildly amused, but I'm not sure I really want to know how that fits into the big picture.

Oh, and the backlog has not changed, but my bee stripe sock has turned the heel and is past the gusset.