Not letting comparison be the thief of joy

Recently I wrote about how I had been inspired to craft after spending some time on Instagram. I have my Instagram feed pretty well curated, and I'm regularly greeted with gorgeous finished craft projects and some great mini tutorial videos. 

I've always loved doing patchwork, and I found that I had been presented with a number of videos featuring a patchworking trick that is new to me. The reel below explains it much better than I can - basically you cut out your squares and lay them out on some fusible interfacing, meaning that you can iron them into place before you sew your seams. The edges of the patches should line up perfectly, and it's a really easy way to make beautiful patchwork fabric.

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A post shared by Maggie Eason (@sunshinestitches.bymaggie)

I have lots of odd bits of fabric lying around, and so I decided to try this method out. I didn't really have a finished project in mind, but I thought I'd quite like to have a mat to put on my table for when I have a project on the go, or some drinks and snacks out. I used mainly 2" squares, with a few 2" by 4" rectangles. Here are my squares after they've been ironed to the interfacing.

And here is my finished mat, once the patchwork squares are sewn together and a fabric backing has been added.

It's not that good! I hear you politely protest, but it really is very wonky - some of the squares look more like rectangles, and you can see the white backing around some of the border.

But do you know what, I am really proud of it. I've seen reams of finished projects on Instagram that are absolutely perfect, and mine isn't anywhere near that quality. But I have learned to remind myself that what I'm seeing there are the very best pieces that the maker can produce. They are often made by people that are selling their work, and an Instagram feed is their shop front. They need to show the very best that they can do - and what's more they are showing the final results after many hours of practice.

I expect their first pieces looked a lot like mine!

I'll keep practising here and there, and in the meantime I'll just enjoy what I'm doing.