My sister, Heidi Ho, recently reminded me that “finished is better than perfect.” She’s the queen of finishing things. I’m the queen of trying to create a perfect plan … but then something invariably gets caddywhompus during the execution of said plan, and I get overwhelmed and subsequently give up.

Inspired by her recent visit (more on that later) and buoyed up by her example of fearless finishing, I started AND finished a quilt for a baby shower I was helping to host … in one day. The Littles and I headed out to JoAnn’s at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, got fabric (after overcoming a bit of analysis paralysis), made a couple more stops, returned home, ate lunch, and then I started in on the quilt shortly before 2:00 in the afternoon. I stopped long enough to deliver Ariana and a friend to All-City Choir practice at 4:00, was back at it by 4:30 and finished an hour later.

The quilt is no work of art. It is a simple blanket made of two fabrics–floral flannel and off-white chenille; I used the “wrong” side of the chenille on some of the blocks to give it more personality. The squares are 7 1/2″ finished; it has no batting; three pieces of rick rack sewn on diagonally across the quilt are the only “quilting” that holds the layers together; and I cheated on the “binding” by cutting the back 1″ bigger than the front on all sides and then folding it over twice to the front form a “faux” binding.

But for all its imperfections, finishing it was not only better than perfection … it was a MIRACLE!