Sometimes – things just don’t go as expected…. a long anticipated trip goes pear-shaped, a much looked for meeting does not give the wished-for result, and sometimes, well sometimes a worked on project just goes a little or a lot – awry.

Having Meniere’s means that everything we ever do is more of a challenge than it used to be, so sometimes trying something new can give…….. interesting results. So it is with my Scrappy Mountains Quilt. Trying out FMQ on my 1913 Singer 15K-88 treadle I discovered that, the more I’d done, the more confident I became, and…… the closer stippled! So happy was I to be nearing the end, I happened to look at all I’d done to admire it and spur me on to the end. As my eyes roved smugly over the quilt, they landed onto the first few rows I did. I was horrified! The stippling was much larger, and looked clumsy and ugly to my eyes, where the closer stitched stipples looked less clumsy and more meandering and – to me – more aesthetically pleasing.

Hence my dilemma. I told myself “It’s a practice quilt, it’s only for me, so it doesn’t matter.” and immediately started thinking how I could use it so that I can hide the differences in the stitching, and where I could put it in the house so that no-one could see how ugly it looked!  I knew straight away that I couldn’t leave the way it was.  I would only regret it. I steeled myself to spend some long and tedious hours unsewing.

Yes, it will be slow, tedious and seemingly never-ending to do, but this regression is a necessary exercise. It’s but a small thing in comparison to years of regret that I’d feel every time I looked at the quilt.

Quilting has many parallels to life and this is one of them. Sometimes, progression requires regression as part of the journey. It’s like righting a wrong – it must be done! It’s always harder to do, but things will never be right unless you put in the effort to correct it. Things will always be much better afterwards – and with no “what ifs,”  no ” I wish I hads,” no “I wish I’d nevers.” By doing so you can forestall regret.