On perfection

I've read a couple of articles that have mentioned perfection with regards to hand made items over the last few days. And then I popped into the British Museum before meeting a friend for lunch and spotted this sign on a scarf and I couldn't resist taking a photo of it. In case you can't read it, it says “slight irregularities in weave and dyeing are an inherent part of a handmade product.” (The scarf is by taran taraan)

The first article I spotted that made me think of this was Denyse Schmidt: Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration which has the following paragraph in it:

Along the way, Schmidt found herself attracted to old quilts. “They’re so full of stories and you wonder about the person who made them,” she says. She was especially drawn to those stitched with random fabrics, whose seam lines don’t meet exactly. “There is so much beauty and personality in the wonkiness— there’s a kind of looseness in them, like a hand-drawn line,” she says.

And then I read On Not Being a Perfectionist (or Perfect!) in which Laura says

I have a confession to make. I am not a perfectionist. I am all too aware that I am not perfect and that - mostly - I do not create perfect work.

Perfect is not a word I can use for any of my craft projects at the moment. They are definitely at the "wonky and personality-filled" end of the scale, with plenty of irregularities. And you know, I think I'm alright with that, I haven't been doing any of these things very long, and I'm very definitely still learning. As long as each thing can be classed as progress, I thnk that's fine.