Letting go of perfection....

I totally agree with Shawna of 1 Choice 4 Quilting on this
I've been quilting most of my life (I started with a doll's quilt of squares when I was 4), and for many of those years, I strived for perfection and the quilts that take years to make. One quilt I started when I was 12 (20 years ago), with Americana colors and simple star blocks... I determined to hand quilt it ever so carefully and it's STILL not finished!!
Finally a couple of years ago, one of my dearest friends was having a baby, I was in the middle of nursing school and just had 2 weeks of Christmas break to make hers; that was my first "quick" quilt and I did a combination of machine quilting and big stitch hand quilting with perle cotton. She and everybody who saw it absolutely loved it!

That inspired me, and was so rewarding, that when I finished with classes in October last year and actually had time to sew again, I started quilting. The bigger the pieces the better, and I've made somewhere around 20 quilts in the months since. Many have been baby or wall size, but several full size ones too.
And I just discovered the absolute fabulousness of having a full size quilt longarm quilted, it was worth every penny!!! That quilt that's been waiting to be finished to give to my brother for 20 years??? I'm adding the borders to it and taking it to my longarm quilter to see if she can quilt the borders and "over" the hand quilting! I'm very excited about that!