Course Correction

This month came with a pile of thread. Not metaphorically. A literal pile. What was left after unpicking part of a quilt that didn’t quite work the way I thought it would.

I had designed a block that looked clean on paper. I thought the seams would nest within the block and across the quilt top. That is always the goal for me. I am particular about seam behavior. I want them to settle into place, not fight each other. I have even added seams in designs just to make alignment cleaner. Yes, including cutting fabric apart and sewing it back together again for the sake of structure.

This one slipped through.

I didn’t catch it until I was well into construction. A couple of seams were pushing instead of nesting, and once you feel that resistance, you know. There is no ignoring it. At that point, the only real option is to step back, rethink the structure, and start unpicking. It was not my favorite afternoon, but it was the right call. The fix was small. Breaking up part of the block changed everything. The seams started working with each other instead of against each other, and the design itself opened up in a way I had not planned but ended up liking more.

That part felt familiar. Solve the problem, learn something, move on. The less familiar part this month was something else entirely.

I have been trying to slow down.

This project moves quickly. I work ahead, often well ahead, because that is how I am wired. My day job trained me to produce a high volume of good work on tight timelines, and that carries over here. Even though I release one pattern a month, the design and making side runs faster in the background.

For most of this year, I have been uneasy about that gap. The quilts being released reflect where I was as a designer months ago, not where I am now. So I tried to fix it by deliberately slowing down.

That did not go well.

It turns out forcing a slower pace creates its own kind of friction. It felt like being stuck walking behind someone moving just a little too slowly when you have somewhere to be. You can match the pace, but it takes effort, and it is quietly exhausting and frustrating.

What I actually like is having things in motion. Working in small chunks. Making a little progress each day. Letting ideas move forward while I handle the other parts of the business alongside them.

Trying to override that did not make me more connected to the work. It just made me restless.

So I have dropped that approach and I am working at my natural pace again. Some days that will be fast. Some days it will not. Either way, the work gets done, and the projects keep moving. If that means I stay well ahead of my release schedule, that is not a problem. It is a buffer. And buffers are useful.

The distance between making and releasing is still something I want to pay attention to, but slowing down was not the solution. I will solve that in a different way.

We are heading into summer, which means a little more space to work. I am planning to use that time the way I work best. Making quilts, writing patterns, and letting the rhythm of it shape my days.

I expected this project to have ups and downs. A goal this size was never going to be smooth sailing.

I just did not expect one of the downs to be realizing I was trying too hard to go slower.

That one took a minute to figure out.