August 31, 2004

I am apparently a good quilter. After my first quilting class, at which I performed such miracles as sewing two pieces of fabric together evenly and drawing a triangle–both of which feats somehow managed to be beyond the ability of some of the other people in the class–the teacher, on her way out, remarked to one of the women working behind the counter at the store where the class is held, “This one’s going to be another John.”

Another John? I thought. Hell, once I hit my stride, these people won’t even remember who John is.

That was two months ago.

Now I have been reduced to a quivering mass of despair, hoping fervently that, once I am discovered, the women who run the store and teach the class aren’t going to be talking about me on the phone, saying, “Faustus? We had such high hopes for him, but he’s turned out to be nothing but one disappointment after another.”

But the thing is, it’s really not my fault. I blame Island Batik.

When I made this block, it was only the first step in my grand design, which was to lead to the creation of a beautifully-designed queen-sized quilt using these colors and this pattern as a foundation. But the design hadn’t reached full maturity when I bought the fabric; I realized, therefore, that I needed more blue. So I ordered a few more yards of it.

Only to find that it had been discontinued. Island Batik had stopped making it just long enough ago that nobody had any left. And I mean nobody. I called like fifty of the stores listed on Island Batik’s web site, and not one of them had any of this fabric.

And now, knowing that the perfect fabric for my quilt exists but is forever beyond my reach, I am completely paralyzed. I can’t buy a less suitable fabric and make a quilt that I know to be inferior. And yet how can I walk into class on Thursday, after two weeks off (the teacher was judging some quilting competition in Vermont), knowing that they’ll think I’m a pathetic loser who doesn’t deserve the appellation “quilter,” having failed utterly to come anywhere close to the expectations they had of me? How can I even live, knowing that I will be eternally dogged by the shadowy figure of John, perfect John, in John we trust, always a Faustus and never a John (well okay except for that one time but I was really lonely)?

I have somehow managed to turn quilting into something at which I can fail. Up next is napping.

If you don’t see any posts from me for a while, it’s because I will have put my eyes out with a basting needle (size 7).