Friday update

I'm so glad it's Friday and all my work is done for the week. For the past 2 months, I've worked every weekend, typing up the reports that are due, and as of yesterday afternoon, I thought I was caught up. Until I opened the email from the attorney who reviews my work.  It was not good!  I called her--I still think some things cannot be discussed electronically!--and we tried to figure out what to do, but it ended up with me having to do a bunch more work on this one report.  I'm so stressed out!  I don't have time for this!  I'm on a very tight schedule to get everything done in time and this throws a wrench in the whole thing!  

I'm exaggerating a bit in the previous paragraph, but the reason I bring this up has to do with how I reacted to the email.  Usually, I'm a very can-do kind of person, sure of myself, know that my work is good, and so forth.  But when I get an email that questions what I've done, it just throws me for a loop!  All afternoon, after I'd read the email, I had a knot in my gut, worrying about what the email writer must think of me, thinking "How could I be so stupid careless?" "Am I going to be in trouble with my boss?" "I'm no good at this!" and on and on.  Until we spoke and we worked it out.  

So the question of the day is, why do I get that reaction? ? ? ?  You would think that after nearly 7 decades of life that I would have gotten over it, right?  But oh no, I see my mother's wagging finger and hear her voice saying, "But what will the neighbors think?"  and "Oh, I don't think you can do this." and the guilt and doubts surface all over again as though I was 5 years old.  Uggghhhh!  I hate this feeling!  I've been successful in most of my life, in what I consider success, and I've accomplished a lot in my career, so why won't that little girl inside grow up and leave me alone!  

One would think that after all this time, I would be able to handle a little criticism!  After all, we quilters know that no one is perfect--we even include an "Amish mistake" in our work!  But when it comes to my professional work,  there's no room for an Amish mistake--in my tortured mind!  It makes no sense!  I gratefully welcome criticism of my quilting and cooking and gardening, but not my professional work. I'll be so happy when this job is over.  I never want to go through this again!  

I know I don't usually write about these kinds of things, but I guess I needed to let it out a bit.  Am I the only one who goes through this?  I'd love to hear from others who struggle with this unreasonable reaction to criticism--please respond and let me know how you handle it.  

Anyway, I'm better today. On Monday, I'll get to work on redoing the thing and fixing my mistakes and move on, and it will be okay, I know. Cuz, I'm a can-do kind of person and will correct this ASAP!  Right?  Right! 

On to some quilty things, where I have an abundance of self-confidence. :)  Here's my sewing chair with a new seat cover made of selvages.  I love it!  I had planned on covering the back also, but that's a little more complicated than just stapling it on--the raw edges have to be covered somehow and I've not yet worked out how to do it.  The important thing is that the worn out seat is covered and looking pretty snazzy, if you ask me!

In the photo below, you can see that I was able to include some jack-o-lantern selvage and that I played with my fancy machine stitches in some of the empty areas.  I just love how this makes the chair look!  All I did was zigzag stitch the selvages onto a piece of heavy muslin, back and forth, until the piece was covered and then cut it to fit the chair seat. Easy peasy!  I just overlapped the selvage strips instead of sewing a 1/4 inch seam and flipping.  I had better control over how the pieces would look on the outside this way.

And here's the Chunky churn Dash quilt with it's borders and the flower applique stuck on. I machine appliqued about half of it yesterday and hope to finish it today.  You can't see it but there are vines and flowers in the opposite corner as well. I guess you can see a bit of the vine coming down in the upper left corner.

As usual, the lighting in the sewing room sucks--sorry about that. I'm liking this quilt a lot and will get it pinned and quilted as soon as I can so it's ready for the challenge in May and then it gets shipped to my friend in Bemidji who will put it in the fundraiser she's organizing.  I know she told me what it's for--a homeless shelter or food pantry or some such thing--but I've forgotten.  I hope she likes it.

So, today, I have some chores to do and then it's in the sewing room until dinner time and then what I hope will be a great college hockey game tonight on TV--Mankato State University vs Bemidji State University (my alma mater!) Go, Beavers!