Quilting my life

I have recently gotten into quilting. It is amazing to see a little scrap of fabric turn into something real, something beautiful, something tangible. No matter how poorly I sew, the end product is actually quite nice. No matter what I do to the quilt, short of slashing it with a pair of scissors, it is turns out OK. My friend Benita comes around so often to give me pointers and to say to me "It might look better like this..." or "Have you thought of this...." She is amazingly helpful. It causes me to wonder, though--Are our lives like making a quilt? I am total crap at sewing--I can hardly sew a straight line to save my life. However, here I am, making these really pretty quilts. Some for me, but mostly for others. My 5 year old niece is not going to care if I her final product is perfect (which fortunately for me, she feels that way, because it definitely wasn't perfect!). She sees it as a part of me. So are we as humans that way--we start off as this little scrap of a person, and as a new year is sewn into our lives of experience, we grow, just a little bit. Then all those years start to grow together and connect. All of a sudden, you look back and see this thing that you have created, and wonder "Where did that come from!? I remember sewing each of these parts together, but how did it turn out to be so big and intricate?" Then you start to remember your flaws-- "Ugh... I didn't do that the right way..." or "what was I thinking?" And others just see the time, effort and energy that went into making your quilt. The stitching may be crooked, and the colors may not always clash, but the quilt that is my life will turn out OK in the end. It will be beautiful and valuable to someone, one day down the line.