When You Don’t Want to Put in the Time
My favorite quilt is a 100 nine-patch with 50 pairs of coordinating positive and negative patches. For years it was periodically on my dining room wall (I rotated quilts for decoration) and people would say, “Oooh, I love that. How long did that take to make?”
I tried to estimate the time it took to find fabric, wash it, iron it, cut it up, sew the patches, plan the design, sew the patches together and finally hand quilt it. It took at least 200 hours, maybe more.
At that point, no one – unless they are a rabid quilter — is saying “Hey, I want to do that, too.”
But that’s okay. Not everyone wants to make a quilt to hang on their wall. Some people would rather buy one, but the problem with that, is that few people want to pay for someone else to make one by hand.
So what do you do when you want something but don’t want to do the work to get it?
1. Arrange for someone else to do it. Pay for it, barter, or beg.
2. Change your desires – settle for something else.
3. Stop whining and Get to work.
Some people think #3 is always the best choice. I disagree. We only have a limited amount of time and it’s important to put our efforts towards the things that matter most.
For example, right now, I’m not quilting. I still look at quilts, but the majority of my time is spent writing because that’s a higher priority. However, I keep thinking about another quilt project – a cute striped quilt with 1930s retro fabrics – and one of these days I’m going to block out another 200 hours. Maybe just one hour a week. 
Brag alert: Check out the tiny stitches on my 100 nine-patch quilt.
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