Well Laid Plans

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it!!

Jill, Jennifer and Norma hard at work!

Paula's Quilting Pantry, just outside of London, KY, hosted a Sew-In Retreat -- an opportunity for a bunch of us to sit-n-sew with the main purpose of getting things done!  As this is an issue for me (Do I not have an "Accomplish Something Today!" sign on my wall!?!), I figured it was the perfect time to make some get-r-done plans.

Dear Jane was my first attempt.  I was able to get the whole center of the quilt together!!! (Isn't she just wonderful!!!!).  Then I set to work on the triangle borders.

I've made the sashing on DJ bigger so I can do some handquilting between the blocks.  Bigger sashing, though, necessitates bigger triangles for the border!  I tested the design on the Dear Jane software made by Electric Quilt, printed the larger templates and had everything ready to sew at Retreat...

We pinned the triangle border where it will need to be cut to make it more in proportion with the rest of Dear Jane! 
I'm sewing the top and bottom borders!! Don't I look like I'm ACCOMPLISHING something! :-D

Thing is....what looked good on EQ didn't translate well in Real Life!!!  The triangles I put together for the border looked positively GARGANTUAN beside the little delicate DJ blocks.  All of us at the retreat stepped back in the room to check it out, and with the help of wonderful quilt friends, we decided the best option was to cut off the triangles to make them more in proportion to the rest of the quilt.  The background triangles will have "blunted" tips -- but that's OK.  I can put another border of muslin on (just like the "real" DJ) and scallop it, and I think it will turn out well.

I managed to get a few more things done on Saturday -- some blocks for "Hometown Christmas," a Thimbleberries project I've wanted to complete for a while.  It won't take me long to finish that up if I stay diligent.

Dear Jane has taught me a lesson though.  Sometimes we think we know the outcome of our plans.  I love to plan, but the reality doesn't always turn out like my well-intentioned diagrams and computer programs and ideas.

Blessedly, though, God's plans always turn out exactly as He wants them!  "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11)  I John 3:2 tells us, "Dear friends, now we are the children of of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is."

I know Dear Jane will be beautiful! (She can't help it; it's in her design!)  Similarly, you and I will also turn out beautifully because that is how God designed us.  If we trust Him, he promises we will "be like him" -- the spitting image of Jesus.  He promises we have a hope and a future.  We don't know what that entails, exactly, but it will be good.

And God may have to make adjustments on us like I'm making on Dear Jane, cutting here or there or adding what's needed to make us complete, to make us in the image of His Son, but it won't be a surprise or frustration to Him, more's the praise!!

Do you trust Him with the design? the process?  the finished product?  Let Him accomplish something in you today!

Blessings!
Mary Lou