I, too, often have some handwork with me. I like having something small that is always in a tote bag so I can grab it on my way out the door. You never know when you are going to have to wait somewhere. From the time my kids were small, they always had something to do whenever we went out the door so they had something to occupy themselves. It was MY sanity saver, just like my handwork is now.

Early in my professional career as a speech pathologist, I worked with a lot of stroke patients and other people with late onset speech problems. Their families were usually terribly frustrated because they could not communicate with their loved one in the way they were used to. Many times the family would say to me "you have so much patience" and my response was my patience lasts just as long as the therapy session and my interaction with that patient. They had to be patient (or try to be) 24/7. My patience was one patient long!!!! Pun intended.

Today I am often the patient and I have little patience but my hand embroidery is my salvation. Dh never understands why I have to carry a certain bag to every appointment etc. Too many times I have run out of magazines and being in Texas half the year the TV is often in Spanish so my embroidery maintains my sanity. No patience involved. JUST SANITY.

ANN

Handwork is my way of turning wasted time into MY time!

I also agree that I like to do handwork because I am NOT patient about waiting.

BethMI

Me too- I always have to have something to do with my hands when waiting-- and when watching TV. I don't do much hand quilting, but at times are tempted because then I would have hand work for those times!

I too have heard that comment. I am impatient and that is exactly why I bring along hand work to do when waiting. I was a hairdresser for 20 years and I worked on a schedule. I did not make people wait who had an appointment and were on time. "On Time" seems to be an antiqueated term. On a recent airplane trip, the plane was "Late". I had become used to the term "delayed" but now they just say the flight was "rescheduled". Time to get out the hand work to keep my blood pressure from going thru the roof. Now I'll bet some one will start chatting with me about what I am doing and then I will hear "My grandmother used to quilt." Please Lord give me a smile to wear today. Betty Ann In wet Florida

This is very interesting to me as I have been thinking a lot about it this week.....this crazy week of "move it to college", and "put house on the market", and here I sit this morning sewing hems in outfit orders for a shop. "You must have a lot of patience", is something I've heard many times thru the years when I've always had some type of handwork with me, and in recent months I also carry a little notebook that I draw quilting designs in a LOT. Sometimes I might not be able to sew, but I can always take out that little notebook and draw.

I am not patient by nature....instant gratificaton has always been my friend, but I think we certainly appear to be patient to those around us who mostly never slow down enough to even THINK about something like "handwork".

I am mostly a machine piecer/quilter like you, but there is a strange sense of calmness that I feel when I do something like handwork. Most of the people in my everyday life never slow down enough physically or mentally to consider something like this.......so maybe in doing our various handwork, handpiecing, etc...... we develope patience without even knowing it.....at least I know that's how it works for me.

Dana in Olive Branch, MS

Yeah I've wondered if it was a veiled comment like "I couldn't do something so tedious for a million bucks!" I know there are folks out there that don't understand the allure for us. My best friend had an obsessive love for tupperware. I could understand obsession of course but could never get the allure of tupperware lol!

I have heard that comment too. I do what I do because I enjoy it, it doesn't have anything to do with patients.

Several times recently, when I've been doing hand-work (usually BOM applique) in public, someone has commented "you must have lots of patience". I don't like to think of myself as "impatient" but I realize that having something to do while I wait in dr. offices, school pick-up lines, etc., HELPS me be patient. In fact, because I'm doing something that I love, I sometimes am bummed when the "wait" is over. I only find myself truly irritated when I've got some other pressing engagement/appointment that I'm about to be late for.
As a working mom (I know, we ALL work, what's a better term?) I feel like I'm going backwards if I'm not doing at least two things at a time! Granted, I do more machine work than hand-work, and I love pedal-to-the-metal sewing, I DO want to always finish the current project quickly so I can move on to the next, so maybe I am impatient?
Just thinking here, maybe b/c I finished my August BOM and am forced to wait, patiently or not, for September!
Florence