Kindergarten lessons
When I was in kindergarten we had a classroom assistant who I was afraid of. I'd have to uncover a yearbook to find her name, but she was an older person, and wasn't especially tolerant of the whims of small people. There was one time in particular when we were painting life sized (traced) portraits of ourselves and I had chosen a laborious stripe pattern for the very long dress I was painting on my tiny paper body. I remember her being irritated with me for my choice of stripes, and today as I was stitching this quilt and feeling irritated with myself for my choice of stripes I heard her voice clear as day: "It's going to take you forever if you switch colors for every stripe". AHA! Insight! It just clicked that I can put in all of one color and fill the others in-between. Thank you Ms. Teacher Assistant. It look 25 years to sink in, but I get it now.