Sewing lessons are an arena for inviting balance. I can finish a double wedding ring without outside help, arguably one of the more challenging quilts in a woman's repertoire. I blithely say woman, in spite of the fact that I once paid good money to take a course from a
man in cowboy boots named John Flynn whose double wedding rings run circles around mine. But most quilters are women. Still I digress.
My students, by contrast, have trouble remembering, if they even knew, to sew with the right sides together. I remind them.
But within those two extremes, a quilt with nine hundred trapezoids and a pillow with a pair of rectangles, there is wiggle room. How much assistance do I give to a six year old who might become frustrated with scissors that have opinions about cutting through fleece? Sometimes they ask me to do it for them. Mostly I say it is up to them. When am I imposing my standards on a doll dress that has no facing and raw edges where a hem might be? On occasion I simply ask the child if they
are happy with the holes, or if they want to fix them. Assuming that there is still time before their mothers drive up, we can.
Yet the dance I am in with my students starts before we even pull fabric off the shelves. When a nine year old decides to make a dress for her mother I redirect her. One such girl was deflated by my unwillingness, and moped for fifty of the
remaining fifty nine minutes. Probably she thought I was mean, or lazy. In my defense I am neither, if the stack of quilts in my living room is any evidence. But I have seen the limits of a young child's endurance, and believe that avoiding an ambitious project is preferable to a floor full of chopped fabric and tears.
There have been ideas that bubbled to the top of my
own spirit, that ended before they began. I sometimes blame God, or my circumstances. I curse the forces that block me from grandiose plans, and even sulk.
Yet I have empathy for God's position. How much should he spare me from defeat, and when is it okay to let me dissolve in a puddle of self pity?
