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.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

I am currently working on binding this quilt (I will post about it when it is finished), and I took pictures before it was bound, but I happened to be driving past this spot when I was on my way to see my mom and took the opportunity to stop. I had the quilt with me because I was in search of a binding for it. I loaded these photos onto my computer today and felt like I needed to share this now - even if the quilt is not finished.

This quilt is called 'Bloom Where You Are Planted'. God has planted us in some very different places lately and everyone is navigating unchartered territory in an attempt to find a new normal.  I wanted to share that not only during these uncertain times, but every day, I can't think of a better place to be planted than at the foot of the Cross:

Even when there is barbed wire and I find myself in a patch of Prickly Pear there:

Even then. Especially then.

Bloom Where You Are Planted Quilt

Bloom Where You Are Planted

That has always been one of my favorite sayings and I really had to put it into action when we moved here 11 years ago. It was a really difficult transition for me to move from our beloved mountains to this flat desert. It took me a couple of years to acclimate and I was obstinate about accepting the change. God wanted to bless us here and I kept pitching a hissy fit and telling Him that I did not understand why He planted us here. But He makes no mistakes and all of His plantings are intentional...and perfect.

I wrote this a few days ago to post about this quilt today and then this morning I opened up my devotional and read this:

I am  going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert...There I will give her back her vineyards. (Hosea 2:14-15) -from Streams in the Desert Devotional

The NKJ version reads:
 Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
I will give her the vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Anchor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land  of Egypt.

Yep, Perfect timing, once again.

I'm an optimist by nature. A glass half full kind of gal. Make the best of it. Cowboy up. Hitch up your britches and get on with it, but I struggled with this. I was still thankful for this lifestyle, and for each moment with hubby and the chiddlers, but I sure did miss those mountains.

It took a while, but soon, I began to see the beauty in this land:

The blessings that bloomed in the most unlikely places:

And so I continue to bloom where He has planted me and I've come to love this land. I am always amazed of the desert wildflowers that grow in this place of little rain and since it is really hard to grow blankets of wildflowers here, I decided to change my medium from seeds, to fabric.

For some time, I've had the hankering to make a simple wildflower patchwork quilt. I've collected floral fabric for a a few years, gathering bits and pieces that appealed to me here and there:

I finally set about cutting 5" squares from each fabric and stitching them into pairs last fall. I'm fairly certain that I had photos, but they seem to have vanished.

I wanted simple with flowers just tossed about in wild abandon and I wanted a whole mess of them:

Mission accomplished. :)