Seasons

We've had a beautiful blast of winter weather in Kentucky! One of the reasons I love where I live is that I get seasons -- usually four distinct seasons with gentle springs, hot summers, crisp autumns and cold winters.  Not often, though, do we get snow so early in the season as we've done this year!!  Not even officially winter yet, and the dustings have started....and I'm dreaming of a white Christmas (!), a rarity here in southeastern KY!

The view out my window is encouraging, though!

I think I go through seasons as a quilter, too.
I'm not quite sure how to characterize the seasons, though. They are erratic and unpredictable, and I may go through all four seasons in a day (not unlike the weather in Kentucky! LOL), but each is distinct in its activities and attitudes!

There are the -- what? -- days of "spring" when everything is fresh and new! New projects started, ideas popping like leaf buds on trees.  It's exhilarating and sweet and promising.

Then there are the lazy days of "summer" when I'm content to riffle through books and magazines and dream of projects to do someday, or pull fabric from the stash, fondle it and mark it for later. 

Autumn is harvest time -- I think that's when I am in my "accomplish something" mode.  I've been very productive in the last few weeks.  Lots of deadlines have come and more are on the horizon.  Today I finished the blocks for the Bali Sea Star (or Batik Stars as I have been calling them) from Scrap-Basket Surprises.  They are up on the design wall, and I'll shuffle them around a bit 'til I like the arrangement, then I'll assemble the quilt top.   I've got pairs of rectangles ready to make a pieced outer border.  I expect to get-r-done tomorrow! 

Winter, I suspect, is when I hunker down and hibernate, quilting by hand or stitching down the binding on a finished quilt.  I enjoy my "winters" even more knowing that spring is right around the corner with its promise of something new.

I've heard it told that during his first inauguration, on a snowy day like today, George Washington placed his hand on the Bible open to Deuteronomy 28 in which God describes the blessings He will give His people if they will obey Him.  "If you fully obey the LORD your God," Moses tells the people in verses 1 and 2, "and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God..."

And among those promised blessings is verse 12: "The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless the work of your hands."

An apropos Word for a man about to take the reigns of a nation, don't you think?

And appropriate for me, too, in my "seasons" as a quilter, homeschooling mom, wife, citizen, friend.  The work of my hands will be blessed when I obey Him.  Could any promise be more precious to a quilter?

Blessings!