A Lost Cause?

I told my mother yesterday afternoon that I was going to be making a quilt.

She rolled her eyes, sort of smirked at me, and said "ok" in a very sarcastic sort of way.

She doesn't believe that I will finish it. Not because she doesn't believe in me, not because she thinks I have no talent or ability. But because I have proven in the past that I will not finish things. She has gone with me on numerous occasions to craft stores of all varieties, watched as I filled shopping carts full of neat little tools, big tools, ridiculous tools I would never use. She has helped me fill 30 gallon trash bags full of yarn that was untouched to give to the Salvation Army. She has moved my bins of yarn that I chose to actually keep, bins of beading, bins of sewing, bins of scrapbooking, even a bin of soap making paraphernalia (which almost always makes me think of Fight Club), to and from the various residences I have had in the last several years.

She has praised my jewelry making ability, has encouraged my sewing, my knitting, my crocheting. She was completely on board when I told her I wanted to start quilting. She helped me pick out a sewing machine, helped me decide on things I needed. In fact, my mother used to sew things. She even made her OWN patterns. She is now a self-professed hater of sewing. Still, I see how she enjoys the fabric stores and sifting through the millions of patterns that exist. I find it frustrating because I might really be able to use her knowledge. However, she has apparently locked it away for all eternity.

But still, she laughs. And for good reason. I have completed maybe 5% of the projects I have started. That's not an exaggeration. It may be inaccurate as I have not done an actual analysis, but still. I think I get it from her. We've come across embroidery and cross stitching that has been sitting in bags in the attic or basement for years, yarn that is so brittle it is unusable. Is it an inherited trait, or a learned behavior? Is it just typical of my generation? She followed through on things until she had children, and then she was surely too busy to be doing cute little cross stitches for fear of poking a baby's eye out, too busy to be sewing her own clothes only for them to end up covered in that afternoon's lunch.

I don't have children. I have little responsibility. And still I cannot do it. I'm hoping my lack of follow through is circumstantial as well, though. A lot has happened in the last few years. Now I'm settled down. Now I have room to work.

Now I will prove my mother wrong.