Have you ever made a mistake in a quilt block and not noticed it until the block or top was assembled? I know I have, and from the looks of many an antique quilt, I don’t seem to be alone. Often when a woman brings a quilt top for me to quilt on my longarm quilting machine, she sheepishly points out a mistake in the piecing. “Don’t look too closely,” she says. Actually, I probably never would have noticed the mistake if she hadn’t pointed it out to me. We tend to see the overall design when looking at a quilt and not the details of each block. I always assure her that it will probably go unnoticed unless she points it out. Then, I usually find myself quoting the old saying, “that will just be your humility block.”
A humility block is a quilt block with a mistake in it. Either the quilter didn’t notice the mistake until after the quilt top was assembled, or she intentionally left the mistake in the block, not wanting to take the time and effort to correct it. Over time, some superstitions arose about these blocks. One story says that the humility block must always appear at the lower right corner of the quilt. Another story says if a bride makes a perfect quilt, her marriage will be unhappy. Ouch! No room for perfectionism there!
I have heard that Amish quilters intentionally make a mistake in their quilts because only God is perfect and making a perfect quilt is prideful. This is the classic example I use when justifying a piecing mistake in one of my quilts. However, when I researched the subject of humility blocks, I was surprised to learn that this information is a myth rather than a fact. Quilt historians, who have asked Amish quilt makers about the humility block, write that these women are shocked by such a suggestion. To the Amish, having to make a mistake on purpose suggests that their work is already perfect, which is prideful in and of itself . It’s like saying, “I’m so good at quilting that unless I mess up on purpose, I am perfect.” Obviously, there’s no humility in that!
In the Jo’s Little Women Club I attend at my local quilt shop, we have discussed this topic as it pertains to quilting in Civil War times. Time was valuable; it could not be wasted by ripping out mistakes. Thus, many quilts made during that era have mistakes in them. It had nothing to do with humility– there simply was no time to waste!
I was nearly finished with a quilt for Jo’s Club called Daffodil Hill, when I noticed there was a mistake in the border. One of the four patch blocks was turned the wrong way. (In the second four-patch from the left at the bottom of the quilt, the pink squares should be horizontal. The color pattern is messed up when they are vertical.) I was tempted to rip it out and turn it the right way until I remembered our discussion about this subject. I laid my perfectionistic tendencies to rest, and left the block turned the wrong way just to prove a point to myself, I guess. Charm over perfection!
OOPS!
I don’t think we really need to justify our mistakes no matter how they got there. Mistakes are bound to happen when sewing together dozens of little triangles and squares. Hopefully, no one will notice them, or better yet, in years to come people will find them to be charming little oddities in awe-inspiring pieces of art! We will smile down from heaven as antique- lovers speculate whether the piece is upside down by mistake, or intentionally misplaced. 
-Cat
