Bloom Where You Are Planted Quilt

A few years ago (8 is a few years, isn't it?)  I wrote a post entitled just that

Bloom Where You Are Planted

It's one of my favorite sayings and it sums up much of my outlook on life. I get discouraged and worried about things just like ya'll, but I really do look for the blessings in each day. Yes, some days that's easier than others, but I know that God orchestrates the moments of our lives and that helps me navigate through the rough ones.

Here in the desert, it's a challenge to garden. I know it can be done if you have money to do so, but my gardening budget is pretty tight. Or maybe it's just me that's tight. I don't like to spend money. 😄
All of those plants at the nursery are always tempting but my absolute favorite blooming thing is wildflowers. A field of chaotic blooms just makes my heart sing. Back in the day, when we were still in college, DH would drive out to Arizona and Nevada and cowboy during the summer to earn money for living expenses for the next semester. Those were long summers. No cell phones back then and definitely no phones where he worked so we wrote good old fashioned letters (yes, I kept them) and we had one phone call when he went to town over the 4th of July.When he came back to school in the Fall, he brought me a bouquet of wildflowers wrapped in a damp paper towel. Thus began my love of wildflowers. And occassionally, through the years, I still receive them. And what mama doesn't delight in the wilted offerings from the chubby little hands of her exhuberant children when they come bounding in breathless from their latest adventure. The prettiest flowers ever!

So, wildflowers bring me joy and at times we have such pretty ones dancing across the pastures:

I love finding them tucked in unexpected places:

I was supposed to be spraying Cockleburs on this day, but I was sidetracked by the blooming Thistles and entranced by the winged community tending to business:

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to make a wildflower quilt and it took me a long time to gather fabrics, I'd just pick up a piece here and there and I'd cut a few squares from each one. I just wanted a simple patchwork quilt. This quilt has been a long time coming. I started it in 2016 and as I stitched the squares together, I didn't pay any attention to fabric placement. I just added prints that made me smile:

The blue may look like it doesn't belong, but I had to include Bluebonnets

By the time I felt like it was finished, it was 100 x 100:

And I just let the flowers bloom where they were planted:

At one point I found this gingham backing and I thought it was perfect:

It took me a while to find a binding, but I found this green print at One Quilt Place in Fredricksburg and it plays well with all the others so it made the cut:

                                       

Jackie quilted this pretty floral across it using a light sage thread that is perfect:

I took some of these  shots when I drove through the Texas Hill Country in February before it was bound.

It took me a month to bind it and then I wrestled with getting a full shot of it. The barn is the only spot tall enough.

This might be my favorite quilt yet!

There's a Bird of Paradise out in the chicken yard that I did not plant that blooms magnificently every year:

I never water it, yet it flourishes in the dry, arid desert...where it was planted

It's a good reminder for me to remember to bloom where I am planted and to always remember that God is the master gardener.