Perfection

Maybe being a Virgo made me a perfectionist of sorts. Certainly not in my housekeeping, but in creative projects I strive for perfection. If I bake a pie I want it to be both beautiful and delicious. If I sew a blouse, I want no loose threads and no mismatched or bulky seams.

Striving for perfection takes a lot more time than a slap-dash, make-do approach, especially if one becomes compulsive over tiny details. My first inkling that I had reached that point came one day when I was sewing while chatting with Nancy. I was trying to extract a miniscule bit of basting thread from a seam, even though it would never be noticed by anyone. I was tugging at it with tweezers when Nancy said, “Mother, what are you doing? Let it go!” So I did, and with it I began to let go of perfectionism.

This lesson was reinforced when my friend Kathy and I began getting together to sew. When one of us would discover a small mistake in our work, Kathy would say,  “Perfection is over rated.”

These two sensible women helped me see that sometimes striving for perfection is wasted time and sometimes it is worthwhile. What’s more, if a creative project is good in most respects, its flaws only show that it was made by a human being.

Yesterday’s bread, which is quite delicious, illustrates my point.

I hadn’t spent much time forming the loaf and the result is bipolar bread. Who cares? It’s actually amusing.

Today I made new terrycloth kitchen potholders. They will replace the threadbare ones I made ten or fifteen years ago. The new ones were looking so pretty I actually considered sewing on the bias binding by hand, which would have taken hours and been a struggle for arthritic hands. Then I remembered that these new potholders soon will be stained and scorched, just like the old ones. I sewed the binding on by machine instead.

I have just one more practical sewing project in mind, a curtain for the door to the garage. It won’t be perfect, but it will be good enough. When that is done, I’ll finish my latest Streets of Delft wall hanging. That is serious artful sewing and that’s where I will once again strive for perfection, even though I know it is not achievable.

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer