Seasons Switch

I love the pattern for this Seasons quilt. Yet, the designer of the Mystery lives in Australia so their seasons are quite different from ours. Flipped so to speak. She released the Winter season as 'Umbrellas and Raindrops' because it rains for their winters. It always seems to rain here but will snow if temps drop, and most Winters it does snow in Minnesota. 

This is the thing about different places we live in. The web allows us to befriend people from all over the globe and what works for one doesn't always apply for others. As a woman of the world with friends all over and as quilter, I KNOW I have to be aware of our differences, and while I acknowledge and accept, even accommodate them, the real work for me is in adaptation. 

So when she got to her last row, it was Fall or Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Her pattern called for Maple Leaves.

The way the quilt is laid out, there is a 12" appliquéd row and then a 6" pieced row. I learned that quilting block snow flakes have 6 points, and stars have 4, 8, 12, 16. I found a really lovely appliquéd snowflake and had to keep looking. This row was meant to be pieced. Then I found a 6" Snowball block that works and will be the only part on the quilt that is white. It actually has 8 sides. This photo is hard to see the impact of all the rows. It is going to a friend in Minnesota so I wanted him to have snow of some sort.

Thing is, it measures so much longer than wide at 82" x 47". The first thing I did was to change it was to take off one row of 2.5" squares at the bottom and top, and now it measures 78"x47", still not quite balanced for me. There is one more month that provides one more border before we are finished, and I can always add more to the sides on my own.

The same quilt designer is hosting another Mystery quilt-along but it focuses on Australia using those fabrics. I am not joining it. Taking on another Mystery Quilt even if I use my own fabrics is simply too much at this time. I need to finish what is going on here first.

This is a huge part of my spiritual growth....to finish what I start. For so many years, decades really, I loved starting new projects and then turned them over to others. At first, the excuse was that I am an Aries and this is typical behavior. Well sure, maybe. Finishing my projects means taking responsibility for what I bring into reality. I got to a place in my life where I saw what I started as taking a bath & not washing away the soap ring left behind. It was my soap ring and rude to leave it behind.

I think this is why I want to be sure my projects are organized, labeled and finished. This is why I set 2017 as the year I would work on and finish things in my closet that got started and set aside.