Posted on Monday, October 20, 2008 | By Cheryl Reinhard Jukich | 0 Comments

Meet Mr. Procrastination

Help! Any quilting bridesmaids out there? Here I am walking down the aisle with my groomsman, Mr. Procrastination! Oh, why did I hook up with this guy again? He’s dull, he causes me endless angst and I paired up with him as I embarked on a treasured project – a wedding quilt for one of my beautiful nieces.

Greer Elizabeth is the first of my nieces, to tie the knot, jump the broom and get hitched, and I want her wedding quilt to be a sweet but timeworn remembrance to cherish when she celebrates the 50 year mark with David.

So… I had  all summer to think about this wedding quilt for Greer and still found myself obsessing how I will ever be able to cut and sew all the pieces, quilt and bind it, make a memory tag for the back and still have time to wrap it!  (In my signature style of course; a lovely floral paper with a huge  satin bow and ephemera, lots of ephemera. So pretty that it is a work of art itself, if I do say so myself! But that’s another story!)

Oh, why, oh why, do I procrastinate?  It’s not because I don’t want to put the effort into the project, or because I can’t choose the fabric (I could start a fabric shop!).  I want the quilt to be perfect.  I don’t want to waste time choosing and cutting and sewing and then look at the quilt and be disappointed with a case of the  ‘if onlys”.  

You know the sickness called “if only”… if only I had used the pink floral instead of the yellow.  If only I had chosen the cream background instead of the white.  Is the white looking a bit grayish to you?  No? Well, maybe it’s that shade of green that I used for the leaves. LOL!

Of course with the ‘if only’s” comes it’s sister disease called “pesky perfection”.  I believe all of us have been struck dumb with this sickness, especially when the stakes seem high.

This little illness manifests itself with attacks of perfection.  “Oh, look, that seam is not quite matching and I had ten pins holding it in place!”….”for crying out loud, see where the stitch on my quilted squiggle got off track when I knocked my glasses off trying to get the hair out of my eyes?”.  

So what is a girl, under a time crunch to do… short of giving the gift on the third wedding anniversary? (And that’s if you even remember the occasion, or that you were even working on a quilt!)

The answer lies in remembering that a gift given in the spirit of its intention, and made with loving hands, and a glad heart, will be perfect, oh so perfect…no matter what the imperfections!  (It also helps to remember that this is for a bridal couple and not a couple of quilt show judges!)

I guess I had better stop hanging with Mr. Procrastination and chatting with you all, and find that needle and thread so I can start turning under a few miles of binding.  Time’s a wastin’, you know.

Happy Wedding Bells to my darling niece, Greer Elizabeth Beeken and her curly headed, handsome hubby-to-be, David Tyler Wymond.