The Enemy of Perfect

If perfect is the enemy of good, let me become the enemy of perfect.

If I had a personal motto for this year, 2025 I think it’d be this. I used to come up with a personal motto for each year. They’ve ranged from “becoming Mama” to “Return to form”. Our little family has a motto: “we’re the Bakas, and we do our best.” Our best can be only as good as it is, and that’s enough. But me? This year it’s been diving in, and making it bad when that’s all I have, knowing the skill will come as I do it. Measuring zero times and cutting immediately it’s reckless, something I’ve always avoided, something I’ve feared, that if you saw me before I was polished, you’d look away. Now I invite you to look away if you’ll judge me on that.

Let me thrift a quilt pieced from scraps that were never meant to be together : wool and cotton, interfacing and baby blankets. Threadbare, ripped, torn.

This is also the year that I dove into creative Reuse. I had been squirreling away things I loved, scraps and trims and bits for years, afraid to start. Breaking the seal has been revolutionary to my process

Let me stop myself every time I reach to deconstruct, replace, or make it more suitable, presentable.

I don’t need a script every time. I don’t need something profound or even a reason why.

Let me follow the shapes and the lines. Let my stitching be uneven on purpose.

I learn from the flaws, constraints locking me in. How is this – that’s not meant to do this, be this – how is it special when I hold its hand and coax it into becoming?

Because when I let myself be flaw-full instead of flawless, I can start. And when I start, I do. And when I do, I learn.

This is the first year I have had medication for my ADHD. 34 years of executive function freezing me. Even before people said I was prolific. That I did so many things. But they wouldn’t see the white knuckles. They wouldn’t see the creative me clawing at the door to do a single thing.

The projects improve, not by avoiding worse, but by inviting it in.

Doing anything 100 times makes you better at it, whether or not you expect it. Repeat repeat repeat

Following Curiosities:

• Another watercolor run of faces on postcards or other recycled paper
• ACEOs as a vehicle for testrunning.
• Finish the scrap quilt repair. Then show off how awful it is. I love it so much
• Add family motto to crest brainstorm list
• See if I can find old records of my annual mottos.