Compromising is Tough
Eventually yard work is complete. It’s threatening rain outside and the sewing studio needs to be visited. While I am in a “hurry up and wait” process in our basement window project, large projects are on hold. I had decided I want to have a few finished embroidered items on hand for . . . whatever. Kitchen towels were my choice for today. The embroidery can run while I start a load of laundry or get something ready for supper. As I was up and down the steps checking on the project I decided to make this the last trip and just stay close by. The red thread was the last of the color changes. Enjoying a bit of coffee I was content watching each letter to be sewn. Ops! the “d” didn’t look too good and the “C” was surely
off kilter. I apparently had not tightened the screw sufficiently holding the two portions of the hoop with the towel being held taught in between them. The stop button was pushed and I just sat and looked at the project for a while. The last few minutes of the project and it was bad. I was determined not to scrap the entire thing. I have learned that you never, ever take the project out of the hoop as the registry can never be duplicated. With the towel still in the hoop and tightening it, I could only hope. I took the hoop off of the machine and slowly started picking out way-ward stitches that had begun as the fabric had slipped. Good grief. So many tiny stitches and so close together. Ugh! I got all the stitches out less one grouping that threatened the fabric with a possible hole. When the hoop was put back on the machine, there was no way the word “Cookie” was going to be stitched where it rightfully belonged. There had been too much slack in the fabric by that time. All I could do was forge ahead and let the stitching continue.
When Megan was around paper crafting and we had made a boo-boo, she would tell me, “Grammie, that’s what embellishments are for. We cover up the mistake.” Well, Megan, Grammie decided that I couldn’t shrink the area between the two words, so I put in an embellishment. I have decided that anyone getting involved in reading the recipe won’t take note . . . or the person wiping the dishes will have their own agenda. Sometimes even the best intent in details needs to be compromised so the baby is not thrown out with the bath water.